
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chp.p. — — . Copyright No... 



Shelf. 



vE-1 ^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



/ 



ROMANCE AND REALITY 

OF THE PURITAN 

COAST 




Hester Pryntie and Pearl. 




°ftfie 



Sf "Reality 

"Pt/MTArt Coast 




~ Wlttimany fittfe picturinas authentic 



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or fancifuf by Scfmvnd H Garrett 
Pubtjfhed byZittfe l^rown&Co. vofton 



c 7no>ccc^ccyjj 




Copyright, 1897, 
By Edmund H. Garrett. 



Slntorrsttg Press: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. U.S.A. 



PRSE/IC& 



A man might as well go 
to court without a cravate 
as to write a book without 
a preface. 

Sir Roger L'Estrange. 

HOUGH much has 
been written already 
about the North 
Shore, the coast of 
the Puritans, and the 
subject is perhaps 
as well worn as the 
road that leads by 
its sea, it may not 
be superfluous to 
survey the scene from a fresh point of view, 
the saddle of a bicycle. For Nature is found 
along the wheel's track, as well as on the 
mountain path, by the stream, or in the 
woods ; and the love of Nature is our lasting 




8 



Preface. 



joy. The book is then not so much in praise 
of riding, as of seeing. Nor has it only to do 
with Nature, for in it is mixed much talk of 
man's doings and makings, something too of 
history and romance. 



• \ J||| .-•'•''" | I 




N ewly-plougJied fields 



Yet, after all, it is really the love of Nature 
that rules and abides. How often, when the 
winter days lengthen and drag, the wheelman 
sighs for springtime and the road ! I know 
this longing, but with me, it is not wholly 



Preface. 






for travel's sake. The longing is mixed with 
memories of highways where the snow melts 
early, where the scents of springtime are 
unloosened and doubled in the 
bland air ; perfume of red-flowered 
maples, balsam from the pines, and 
a promise of fruition in the odor of 
newly-ploughed fields ; memories 
of the orchard turning all lichen- 
like in color, from its swelling buds, 
and of little brooks sparkling like 
sapphires and diamonds in the 
green lowlands. 

Surely, the riding is only a part ! 
— for what of all this does the 
" scorcher " see, or he of the " cen- 
tury"? To him, too, comes, of 
course, the breath of wood and 
orchard, the fragrance from field 
and garden (as the rain falls on 
the just and the unjust) ; but they come too 
quickly, one upon the other, for the proper 
savoring. Besides, his mind, too intent upon 
the road, has no time for contemplation, nor 




o££.< 



IO 



Preface. 



for vagabond wanderings, no time for sum- 
mer memories awakened by familiar sounds 
and odors, memories of the hot afternoons or 
quiet evenings, the drowsy song of locusts, 




"Rest in a shady grove " 



chirp of katydid or cricket, fresh morning 
rides, and rest in a shady grove, or by the 
cool sea. Most people ride too fast. The 
art of strolling a-wheel should be cultivated. 
The best way to do this is to take the mind 



Preface. 



1 1 



off the cyclometer and the clock, and put it 
on the landscape and its life. 

It was in such a spirit of idling and obser- 
vation that the trip described in this book 
was made. The pictures are for the most 
part those one may see from the saddle, 
or dismount to enjoy at leisure, travelling as 
much in a day as is convenient. Here is no 
desire to impose a point of view upon others, 
but only to record for them that which most 
impressed myself, and to give such simple 
directions as may help them to find, on the 
way, whatever herein may be of interest. 
Indeed, the text has been written around the 
pictures ; and it is plain that, as Stevenson 
said of Thoreau, the writer has " relied 
greatly on the good will of the reader." 





The Start J 9 

The Shore 37 

Nahant 4 1 

Lynn and Swampscott 5& 

Marblehead 66 

Salem no 

Beverly 1 33 

Manchester T 5 2 

Magnolia l6 9 

Gloucester and Rockport l8 4 

Pigeon Cove and Anntsquam 208 




List of 
i DRAWINGS 



v Hester Prynne and Pearl * 

n • n o* ... Title 

Map of the Puritan Coast 

" Newly ploughed fields " 

V A Scorcher 

» ... io 

« Rest in a shady grove 

tj » . . 20 

« Languidly the stream glides 

. . 21 

Medford Square 

A Real Provincial Grandee 

. . • 2D 

Craddock House ^ 

- Through the shadow of a graceful leaning willow . 27 

A pretty coast 

Howard House, Melrose 



1 6 List of Drawings. 

" Between the buttonwoods and willows " . . . . 34 

Boats on the shore, Lynn Beach 38 

The old rock temple 42 

Stony Beach, Nahant 47 

Pulpit Rock 51 

Swallow's Cave 54 

Longfellow Cottage 55 

Moll Pitcher 59 

Fisherman's Beach 61 

Eastern Yacht Club 67 

St. Michael's , 7^ 

Lee Mansion 75 

Front Street 77 

" The backyards are as picturesque as the streets " . 79 

Tucker House 81 

Pirates in Marblehead 85 

Floyd Ireson's House 89 

Old Well of Fountain Inn 91 

Old House on the site of the Fountain Inn .... 92 

Sir Harry meets Agnes Surriage 93 

Lady Frankland 97 

" Old Brig," birthplace of Moll Pitcher 99 

General Glover's Tomb 101 

Lobsterman's Hut 103 

Old Stone Church 104 

Elbridge Gerry's Birthplace 105 

Corner of Back and Mugford Streets 107 

Hawthorne's Birthplace 115 



List of Drawings. 17 

v The Manning Homestead n6 

Where Hawthorne was always welcome 118 

The Custom House, Salem no, 

Hawthorne and the wraith of Collector Pue .... 123 

Old Custom House Wharf 12c 

House in which " The Scarlet Letter " was written . 128 

Beverly Cove 13c 

Paul's Head 138 

Mingo Beach 143 

u Catholic Church 148 

" Beverly-by-the-Depot " 149 

West Beach 151 

Tuck's Point 153 

Manchester Public Library and Church 155 

Manchester Harbor 156 

Unitarian Chapel 156 

Lobster Cove 157 

The pretty Episcopal Church 159 

The Shady Lane 161 

Eagle's Head from Singing Beach 163 

Black Beach and Manchester Cove 166 

An Introduction 170 

Beach at Magnolia 171 

Under the Willows, Magnolia • . . 173 

Summer House, Magnolia 174 

" And the skipper had taken his little daughter to 

bear him company" 177 

Fresh Water Cove Village 180 



1 8 List of Drawings. 

Rafe's Chasm 181 

From the wharves, East Gloucester 186 

Eastern Point 188 

The Harbor from East Gloucester 189 

Ebenezer Babson 195 

"Old Meg" 199 

The Main Street, Rockport 202 

Rockport 203. 

Folly Cove 210 

" The Village Street " 211 

Annisquam Church 215 

Head of Annisquam Harbor 218 

Riverdale 220 




rm sr^vr 



"Then care away 

Jlnd ivend along 'wittj me" 

Coridon'5 Song 



I CROSSED the bridge 
over the Abajona 
River at Mystic, under 
the shade of the willows 
overhanging the road 
by the little boat-house. 
Though just in the 
saddle, and barely 
more than half a mile 
from home, I dismoun- 
ted to enjoy the beauty 
of the familiar scene. 
Languidly the stream 
glides, brown in the 
shadows, and, with its 
lights sky-tinted, glides 
out from the heart of the town, past the 
dented, tufted meadow, and under the oaks 







ha 



20 



The Puritan Coast. 



and maples where its bolder shore rises to 
the sloping fields and orchards. A good 
sketching-ground : peaceful, pastoral, in spite 
of the railroad hard by. 




,j» 



" Languidly the stream 
glides. ' ' 






As I went on, up the hill, to Symmes' 
Corner, the sun flashed a million little span- 
gles on Mystic Lake, and from the farther 
shore the hills rose in hazy distance, rolling 
toward Arlington. It is two and a half miles 



The Start. 



21 



to Medford Square, over a very indifferent 
road, and the ribbon-like track of the wheels 




M, 



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^Mmwn^fm' JLm wwm rip-, . 



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Jibs, 



Medford Square 




showed that long stretches of sidepath be- 
tween the few houses were generally used. 
The goldenrod was on the wane, but purple, 



22 The Puritan Coast. 

white, and golden asters were in their prime, 
though in some places dust-laden, and all the 
way the chicory spread its cheerful blue. 
" Ragged Dick," I have heard this flower 
called : a poor return for the generosity with 
which it lends its beauty to vacant lots, arid 
freight-yards, and factory wastes. Now it 
hung by the dusty roadside, and a little 
farther back I had seen it springing from a 
bed of cinders, and waving in the wind and 
smoke of a passing train. 

Medford is a lovely old place ; it has the 
well kept, settled look of land long occupied. 
Old houses under trees that arch the street, 
picturesque churches, a fine mansion turned 
into a public library, — once these are passed, 
the street leads down into Medford Square, 
where bygones mingle with to-day. 

On the left, amongst colonial homes, is the 
old Seccomb house, built in imitation of the 
Royall mansion, and now used for municipal 
offices. Down Main Street to the right, only 
a little way, on the corner of Royall Street, 




A Real Provincial Grandee. 



The Start. 25 

is the fine colonial mansion itself, built by 
Colonel Isaac Royall after the model of an 
English gentleman's house in Antigua. His 
son, who seems to have inherited the title of 
colonel along with the manse, was a distin- 
guished patron of Harvard College, having 
given two thousand acres of land where- 
with to found the first professorship of law. 
He is described as kind and benevolent, " a 
good master to his slaves." His timid- 
ity made him a Tory and a fugitive during 
the Revolution, and his estates were con- 
fiscated. Great entertainments were given 
here, for the colonel was grandly hospi- 
table, as became a member of the Govern- 
or's Board of Council, and a real provincial 
grandee. 

From the square, down Riverside Avenue 
about a mile, is the Governor Craddock house, 
built in 1634: a strong, fortified brick house 
with gambrel roof and overhanging second 
story. It is one of the most precious relics 
of New England antiquity, one of our few old 
houses retaining its original form. 



26 



The Puritan Coast. 



But our trail lies to the left from the 
square, down Forest Street, a pleasantly- 




shaded way which soon enters the Middlesex 
Fells. At the corner of Elm Street, our road 
to Melrose, there are a drinking fountain and 









_^si. 







" Through the shadozv of a graceful leaning willow. 



The Start. 29 

a pumping station. To the left rise the Fells, 
at the back of Winchester. Around the 
corner, an iron water-tower rises, in black 
ugliness, on a naked hill. Nothing offers a 
better chance for architectural effect, or might 
be made a more pleasing part of the land- 
scape than these water-castles, yet almost 
without exception they are an offence to 
good taste, and veritable eyesores. 

From the top of the hill is a pretty coast 
down to the turn in the road, and through 
the shadow of a graceful leaning willow. 
Here one turns to the left, passes the Lang- 
wood Hotel, overlooking Spot Pond, and 
turns down the Ravine Road. 

On the left is the Virginia Wood, given to 
the public in 1892 by Mrs. Fanny Foster 
Tudor ; its motto : " All who enter this Wood 
are Shareholders in its beauty." Great hem- 
locks, oaks, and pines rise in its shadows from 
their gnarled roots amongst the scattered 
rocks and covert of brake and fern. 

From here there is a good coast to the 
fork of the road, where a turn to the left 



30 The Puritan Coast. 

leads by a shady avenue of bewildering 
autumnal beauty into Wyoming Avenue, and 
so to Melrose. 

After crossing the Boston and Maine Rail- 
way at Wyoming Station, and turning to the 
left, the electric car-track points the way 
direct to where the tracks diverge to Stone- 
ham and Saugus, at Melrose Highlands. 
Here there is a little triangular oasis with a 
fountain murmuring under some maples, and 
lacking only a bench or two to make it a 
welcome resting-place before one proceeds to 
the right down Howard Street. 

About a mile down its length is the an- 
cient Howard house, with a jutting second 
story built by the Puritan settler in remem- 
brance of the old English home. Toward 
the garden is a long lean-to, and an aban- 
doned well with a high-reaching sweep. 

The car-track still points our way through 
Oakland Vale, past infrequent houses, 
patches of flowers, or currant and goose- 
berry bushes in rows under drooping apple- 
boughs. 




A pretty coast. 



- 



The Start. 



33 



Over a wall, by the Newburyport turn- 
pike, the smooth meadow's green was fresh- 
tinted by autumn rains, and beyond it the 




.-■*» it 1'- 



-JP 



ww 






..« 






Howard House. Melrose. 



hills of Cliftondale rose blue with the haze 
of autumn and the drifting smoke of bon- 
fires. At the comer is a large flat rock, and 
there I rested, recalling another summer 

3 



34 



The Puritan Coast. 



afternoon when I had sat there in the shade 
of green leaves, while the new mown hay was 
carried off between the buttonwoods and wil- 




" Between the bitttonwoods and 
willows." 



lows. The cries of the farmers, the barking 
of their dogs, and creak of the laden wagon 
blended strangely with the growing shriek 
of an on-coming electric car. 



The Start. 35 

On the hill, after passing through Saugus, 
comes the first whiff of sea air, as one looks 
across the marshes and the clayey brick- 
yards, under the smoke of their burn ins: 
kilns, to the blue windings of the Saugus 
River. 

Downward to Boston Street, with glimpses 
of the river sparkling at the foot of shady 
lanes and under branching elms, one gets 
the first taste of the picturesqueness of the 
old North Shore towns. Hardly one of the 
houses is set squarely with the street; a 
delightful individuality constrains them. It 
seemed to me like a corner of old Lynn, as 
I remember it years ago, — the great trees, 
the shade, the air of thrift and neatness, and, 
above all, the characteristic orderliness amid 
the general disregard of order. 

The tide was inflowing, with ample eddies 
and a promise of great fulness. Below the 
bridge, boats swung at their moorings ; and 
beyond harvested cornfields and brown hay- 
stacks, above the level marshes, swam in the 
distant haze the great hotels at the Point of 
Pines. 



36 The Puritan Coast. 

But I will leave the reader to follow his 
will in Lynn, stopping to visit the Lynn 
Woods with beautiful lakes, rocky hills, 
far-reaching views of coast and country, 
lonely swamps, Dungeon Rock, and romantic 
Pirates' Glen, or else to wheel on, past the 
long beautiful common, and through the busy 
streets of humming labor and bustling trade, 
to the ocean and the shore. 




Here where these sunny waters break, 
And ripples this keen breeze, I shake 
All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away. 

Whittier. 

When the wind is easterly, one hears the 
long roar of the breakers while he is yet jolt- 
ing over the pavement of Beach Street, and 
although there is a summer hotel at the foot 
of the street, a sudden and strange remoteness 
from city life comes with the sight of the 
sea. To the left, a path leads to Red Rock 
and Swampscott. To the right, is the long 
and narrow isthmus of beach and road which 
connects Lynn and Nahant. On one side 



38 



The Puritan Coast. 



lies the city, its spires and chimneys rising 
through a light, merciful haze, and crowned 
with the smoke of labor, the shore growing- 




Boats on the shore, Lynn Beach. 



fainter and fainter until lost in the thicken- 
ing mist to the westward. On the strand 
near by some yachts were drawn up about an 
old hulk, in a confusion of blocks, ropes, and 



The Shore. 39 

drying sails. Overhead, a few gulls wheeled 
lazily, calling querulously, while some hun- 
dreds of their fellows perched in white lines 
on the tide-left bars below. 

On the other side, the sea was beating in 
on the wonderfully fine beach sprung like a 
bow between the rocks of Lynn and Little 
Nahant. Long rollers of the coming tide, 
sometimes in ranks of as many as five, 
pounded and thundered in the morning sun- 
light that fell in almost unbearable bright- 
ness on their curving crests. Half lost to 
the troubled sight, were outlying rocks in 
the haze beyond the burnished light of the 
reflected sun, where, all mist-interwoven, 
blended the sea and sky. 

The Nahant road is fine, and it is a charm- 
ing, breezy ride. However, the wind has 
such an unchecked sweep across these sands, 
that a struggle against it is sometimes more 
of a task than a pleasure. Curving gently 
towards Little Nahant, the road rises slightly 
above the shore, which is overhung by bay- 



40 The Puritan Coast. 

berry, blackberry, and wild roses, and strewn 
with tumbled bowlders, the advanced guard 
of the Nahant Cliffs. 

In the harbor was a tug outgoing with its 
tow, and from the mystery of the westward 
haze came, as an echo to the roar of the surf, 
the distant thunder of a train hurrying from 
one city to another. The chirp of land-birds 
blended with the cry of wheeling gulls; fish- 
ermen were mending nets near the shore, and 
cows grazing in the marshy meadows between 
the harbor and the sea, all in the mingled 
scents of field and ocean. 







After passing Nahant 
Beach between Little and 
Great Nahant, our road 
turns to the left, and mounts the hill be- 
tween the school-house, under its flag, and 
the engine house with its tower. One 
looks back over road and cottages and the 
crescent-shaped, foam-fringed beach to the 
mainland beyond. 

The second turn to the left, after passing 
the schoolhouse, leads down the hill to a 
queer and picturesque temple, crowning a 
rock upheaved in the side hill and backed 
by a disorderly thicket of poplars. Columns 



42 



The Puritan Coast. 



of rough-hewn stone uphold a roof orna- 
mented with medallions in dusky gold, of 
mermen and mermaids, sea-horses and sea- 




The old rock temple. 



gods. Built in 1861, it is all that is left 
of the once popular resort, "The Maolis 
Gardens." 



Nahant. 43 

At the end of the shore road, by a wood- 
bine-covered rustic fence and gate, a path 
leads down a few rough steps and straggles 
along the cliff above rocky buttresses of pur- 
ple, black, and ruddy sienna, accentuated by 
spots of yellow and cool gray. Down into 
its edge creep weeds and grasses gay with 
wild flowers. The sea breaks below on a 
confusion of many-colored rocks, lifting in 
its every undulation the rockweed which 
shows in the coming wave as in a tent of 

crystal. 

Soon the path rises, passing sometimes 
over the bare, shelving, wind-swept rock, 
until, at the top of a cliff, one comes to a 
seat of stout plank bolted to granite posts. 
It commands a fine and far-reaching view. 

To the northeast is Swampscott, on its 
topmost point the new High School, and 
away in the distance, changing, serrated 
spots of foam discover the rocky islets off 
Marblehead. Eastward, under the sea's 
rim, the waves dash high about Egg Rock, 
named from the great quantities of gulls' 



44 The Puritan Coast 

eggs found there by the early settlers. From 
its lantern, a red warning goes forth into 
the night. Near at hand, the sunken ledges 
now and then betray their presence, as they 
break the incoming swell into great bouquets 
of foam. 

At the foot of the cliff is Spouting Horn, 
seen best by going down at the right to the 
flat ledges below. The waves, breaking on 
the rocks, rush into a narrowing channel, 
and in a second or two a puff of foam and 
spray shoots upward and outward, back to the 
sea, carrying on its breast a little rainbow. 

If we may credit tradition, in these waters 
is the lair of the sea-serpent. We read that 
he was occasionally seen here in the summer 
of 1817 by "Hundreds of curious specta- 
tors," who declared that he was as long as 
the mainmast of a "seventy -four," with a 
"shaggy head" and "glittering eye." Re- 
wards were offered for his capture; it is 
needless to say that they were offered in 
vain! John Josselyn, Gent., who visited the 



Nahant. 45 

coast in 1638, averred that his snake-ship 
was seen " Ouoiled up on a rock at Cape 
Ann." At other times, mention is made of 
his appearance off Cape Ann, but Nahant 
Bay seems to have been his favorite resort. 

There is a charming arrangement of path 
and shore, to a stile at the top of a long 
flight of steps, fringed with graceful willows 
and descending to Stony Beach ; then a turn- 
stile, and between the two, the path loses its 
rustic character and becomes a mere walk of 
crushed stone, bordering an irreproachable 
lawn with cultivated shrubs and brilliant 
flowering plants. Turning the headland and 
almost doubling on itself, the path changes 
to a plank walk, and leads back to Nahant 
Road. Here is a long hospitable bench 
overhanging Bass or The Forty Steps Beach, 
with a fine view of a retired and singularly 
beautiful cove with East Point on its other 
side, and in its middle Castle Rock. So 
sheltered is it here, that only the roughest 
weather can trouble the cove's calm waters. 



46 The Puritan Coast. 

Nahant is an Indian name meaning "the 
twins." Captain John Smith, in 1614, named 
the spot the Fullerton Isles; for before the 
connecting roads were built the high tides 
may have made seeming islands of the two 
peninsulas. Indeed, from a vessel's deck, 
mariners, wary of this rock-picketed coast, 
might easily have thought them sea-girt. 

A suit of clothes was the price paid Saga- 
more Poquanum for the whole place by the 
settlers of Lynn, of which town it was a part 
until 1853. Like all the islands about Bos- 
ton Harbor, it is said to have been heavily 
wooded once; but it was early cleared, leav- 
ing it at once as treeless and bleak as the 
islands are to-day. In the first half of our 
century, thousands of trees were planted by 
public-spirited men from Boston. Willows 
and poplars seem to have thriven best on its 
wind-swept turf. The peninsula was used, 
after its purchase, as a common pasture; 
then came the Breeds, the Hoods, and the 
Johnsons, first lords of the soil, wresting a 
living from pasture and sea until the natural 



Nahant. 49 

beauty of the place and its healthful summer 
climate brought wealthy families from Bos- 
ton and Salem; and amongst them were 
scholarly men of genius, who found compan- 
ionship and help in the presence of 

"The grand majestic symphonies of ocean." 

Unhappily, the houses in which these 
famous men lived and labored have been 
destroyed or very much altered. Prescott 
worked here at his " Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella," his "Conquest of Mexico," and his 
" Philip the Second." His house overlooked 
Swallow's Cave, and has been much changed. 
Motley began his " Dutch Republic " in Mrs. 
Hannah Hood's cottage, which stood in a cor- 
ner of what is now the George Upham estate, 
opposite Whitney's Hotel. When torn 
down, it was the oldest house on Nahant. 
Mrs. Annie Johnson, the Nahant poet, re- 
members well when Longfellow boarded with 
her father, Jonathan Johnson. There he 
wrote a part of "Hiawatha." The house 
was on the Main Street; a few years ago it 

4 



50 The Puritan Coast. 

was sold at auction, moved, and entirely re- 
modelled. Longfellow also boarded with 
Mrs. Hannah Hood, and later bought the 
Wetmore place, and lived there many years. 
Latterly, the house was known as the Long- 
fellow cottage; it was burned May 18, 1896. 
Professor Agassiz had also a summer home 
here. 

No doubt it was partly its convenient 
nearness to Boston, as well as its climate 
and beauty, which led these men to choose 
the place for residence. In fact, it is the 
very closeness of the Nahant cliffs to the 
hived life of cities which freshens and mag- 
nifies the impression produced by the ocean. 
Within sound of bells in city steeples, its 
surf thunders on sand or rock, and the long 
rumble of heavy trains is heard in the pauses 
of roaring breakers. Nowhere on the coast 
is one more impressed by the sea than here. 
On the cliffs at Magnolia, over the abyss of 
Rafe's Chasm and fateful Norman's Woe, or 
by the lonely rocks of Folly Cove or Land's 
End, we may be more alone with nature, 




Pulpit Rock. 



Nahant. 53 

but at Nahant the sharp contrast between 
the city and the shore is felt with keenest 
pleasure. 

At the end of Nahant Road, on the other 
side of Bass Beach and Castle Rock, there is 
a path passing, at the rear of Henry Cabot 
Lodge's house, up rough steps by sumachs 
and struggling poplars, to the cliffs; and 
here is a grand view of Boston Harbor and 
Massachusets Bay. 

Directly underneath is Pulpit Rock, a 
great mass jutting out over the water, and 
named from its fancied resemblance to a pul- 
pit. On its top is the suggestion of a Bible 
and prayer-book. At its left, in the chasm 
crossed by the little wooden bridge, is an 
arch called the Natural Bridge, and at the 
right is Sappho's Rock. The walk over- 
hanging the hollow, resounding chasms and 
jagged ledges leads on to East Point, a van- 
tage ground for viewing the surf; even on 
a calm day it rushes angrily over the ledges, 
to be churned to foam against the resisting 



54 



The Puritan Coast. 



rocks. A great hotel, the pride of the coast, 
was built here in 1824, and was burned in 
1 861. All that is left of it now is the bil- 
liard-hall, a little temple-like structure 
crowning the Point, lonely and picturesque. 



-\-f- m 




SioalloTv' s Cave. 

After returning to Nahant Road, the first 
turn to the left leads past the oddly placed 
little delta of vegetable garden, shrub and 
flower-hid, to the shore, westward. Here is 
Swallow's Cave, said to be seventy feet deep, 



Nahant. 



55 



fourteen feet wide in places, and as much as 
twenty feet in height. I know nothing to 
the contrary; and advise all doubters to for- 
sake the wheel for a dory, and make what 
should be a most interesting investigation. 




— "V. "-^i, 



. 






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w 5 *^ •- - 



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■ 

4 




Longfellow Cottage. 



On the way back, the first left leads to 
Cliff Street, and a pretty vine-clad church; 
whence, by turning again to the left, one 
comes to Willow Road, the way to Bass 
Point and West Cliff, thus completing the 



56 The Puritan Coast. 

circuit of Great Nahant, and leading back 
to Nahant Road and Lynn. 

Just around the corner of Cliff Street, on 
Willow Road, stood the Longfellow cottage. 
It was French roofed, and had sightly ver- 
andas. A large window in the roof lighted 
the studio of the poet's artist son. At the 
back, it overlooked all Boston Harbor. Here 
the poet lived and wrote in sight and hear- 
ing of the sea. 

" Ah ! what pleasant visions haunt me 
As I gaze upon the sea ! 
All the old romantic legends, 

All my dreams, come back to me." i 

Across Lynn Bar, as the harbor is called, 
over the headland, when day is clone, still 
come the "sounds aerial" of the bells of 
Lynn. A few years ago, an order was in- 
troduced in the city government to stop the 
ringing of these evening bells. But toomany 
of the old stock still lived, in whose hearts, 
from childhood, this New England angelus 
had found an echo; and so the Philistines 

1 The Secret of the Sea. 



Nahant. 57 

were routed. As they came to the poet so 
long ago, they still come — 

" Borne on the evening wind across the crimson twi- 
light." 

'• The distant lighthouse hears, and with his naming 

signal 
Answers you, passing the watchword on, O Bells of 

Lynn ! 

" And clown the darkening coast run the tumultuous 

surges, 
And clap their hands, and shout to you, O Bells of 

Lynn ! 

« Till from the shuddering sea, with your wild incanta- 
tions, 
Ye summon up the spectral moon, O Bells of Lynn! 

" And startled at the sight, like the weird woman of 
Endor, 
Ye cry aloud, and then are still, O Bells of Lynn ! " 




Little is left in Lynn of old times, for it 
has changed wonderfully. It seems not long 
ago that much of the manufacturing was done 
in the little door-yard shops, once so com- 
mon, or in the homes themselves. The 
spare minutes of every housewife were given 
to binding shoes. Piles of flat-folded vamps 
stood in some handy corner, and near by the 
women sat and day-dreamed, or gossiped as 
they sewed. Now all work is done in the 
great factories of this the greatest " shoe 
town" in the world. 

Such a bustling city seems an unlikely 
home for romance. Yet under the shadow 
of High Rock lived Moll Pitcher, witch and 



Lynn and Swampscott. 59 



fortune-teller; in the fastnesses of Lynn 
Woods pirates made their m 

lair, and, if we may be- j^ 

lieve tradition, Dungeon 
Rock still guards 
ill-gotten treasure. 

When the shoe- 
shops and mills of 
busy Lynn, and 
noise, and stone- 
paved roads have 
been left behind, 
there comes the 
evidence of pros- 
perity and rewarded in- 
dustry with the well-kept 
roads, villa-lined, to Swamp- 
scott. It is a mile and 
more of good wheeling 
from the fine colonial 
house of the Oxford Club, 
by Nahant and Ocean Streets, to Humphrey 
Street, in concentric curve with King's Beach. 1 
1 Lewis calls this Humphrey's Beach. 




Moll Pitcher 



60 The Puritan Coast. 

First of the Swampscott beaches, it is sep- 
arated from the road by old fish-houses and 
modest cottages whose erratic back-yards, 
gay with the yellow of sunflowers and nas- 
turtiums, make a bright background to the 
oddly-littered sands, — sands gray, moist, soft 
underfoot, fit for old-fashioned sanded floors 
in country inns and kitchens. Fish-nets hang 
drying from the garden fences, or trail their 
sinuous length along the beach. Lobster- 
pots, and fish-cars, buoys, blocks, floats, and 
anchors lie about the sands and the drawn up 
dories. 

The Swampscott dory is the safest of boats, 
if handled properly, and any one needs a 
good boat who must gain his living over the 
sunken ledges of this perilous coast. It is a 
picturesque sight to see the fishermen set 
forth or come in through the morning surf. 
In former years a large fleet of vessels sailed 
from Swampscott for deep-sea fishing, sum- 
mer and winter. Now, only a few are left, 
and most of the fishing is done from dories 
near the shore. " Fish are scurce," is the 



Lynn and Swampscott. 61 

complaint; and the appearance of weirs 
along the coast seems to promise that they 
may be " scurcer." There is no harbor, and 




Fisherman ' s Beach. 

the boats lie at moorings off the beaches in 
Nahant Bay. 

Next, comes Blaney's or Fisherman's Beach, 
longer, busier, with more dories, fishermen, 



62 The Puritan Coast. 

and fish-houses, — the real fishing centre. 
Before reaching it, the road, always with 
glimpses of the sea, passes the soldiers' 
monument, backed by very fine residences, 
on streets laid out through Paradise Woods. 

Orient Street follows the shore closely, and 
where it turns away from the beach there is 
a pleasant look backward over the bay and 
town. From the shore of mingled rock and 
sand, the land rises in diversified and culti- 
vated beauty, and stretches away westward to 
the shores of Lynn and Nahant. The road 
is perfect, and one is tempted to covet the 
shaded seats on these lawns, lulled by the 
sea. 

From the little summer-house overlooking 
Whale Beach, opposite the Ocean House, may 
be seen the cliffs of the South Shore at Scitu- 
ate, showing faintly beyond Nahant and Egg 
Rock. To the left, the beach curves sharply 
to the wooded shore of Phillips' Point, 
Tedesco Rocks, and Dread Ledge. 

The ledge's ominous name might well be 
borne by all the rocky chain of reefs and 



Lynn and Swampscott. 6 



j 



rocks off this dangerous coast. While the 
summer wind just fringes them with white, it 
is hard to imagine how awful and sinister is 
their aspect when swept by the black waters 
of winter tempests. One January night, in 
1857, the ship Tedesco was lost on those 
cruel rocks, and all on board perished pite- 
ously. The tormented sea tore and ground 
the vessel piece-meal, and then hurled her 
great anchors after the debris high upon the 
resisting rocks; and there they were found in 
the morning by the townsmen, amid the other 
wreckage, and the dead bodies, all awful wit- 
nesses of the sea's mighty power. 

But in cycling weather all is peace, and 
from the sunny beach the road rises over the 
point to the dense cool shade of giant willows 
and maples. Then, as it grows sunny again, 
oaks begin to mingle with the willows, which 
seem to be the typical trees of Swampscott. 
Under their branches the old stone walls are 
fringed with sumachs and birches, and rocky 
ledges crop out from their coverings of sweet 



64 The Puritan Coast. 

fern and bayberry. Suddenly cool breezes 
come again from the sea, and, over the wav- 
ing roadside tansy and goldenrod, glimpses of 
blue water between swaying trees ; then, seen 
across green level fields, rise the picturesque 
profiles of Clifton and Marblehead Neck. 

From Humphrey Square, level and broad 
Atlantic Avenue is lined on one side with 
fine residences of the modern American type, 
which at its best is often extremely pictur- 
esque, while on the other side the unoccu- 
pied land slopes gently to Phillips' Pond and 
Beach, and is crossed by a pretty lane under 
apple-boughs drooping with reddening fruit. 
In springtime their white and pink blossoms 
count, in telling masses, against the tender 
blues and greens of sky and water. 

In fact, this " stern and rock bound coast" 
is richly beautiful in color. Beyond Beach 
BlufT, its craggy hillsides are dotted with 
softly rounded clumps of willow, turning sil- 
ver in the breeze, though touched by autumn 
with lemon yellow, the slopes and marshy 
places are splashed broadly with goldenrod 



Lynn and Swampscott. 65 

and tansy, with the dull rich red of Joe Pye 
Weed, and the sombre purple of ripe elder- 
berries ; in the hollows, squares of strange 
blue, green, and dye-like purple cabbages 
alternate with pumpkins and squashes in 
every gradation of yellow and orange; and 
all this brightness is interwoven with the 
bronze greens and browns of foliage made 
splendid here and there by the scarlets and 
gold of early autumn leaves. 




When one turns again toward the sea, it 
is by the little greenhouse and the bit of 
meadow made gay by bunches of changeful 
hydrangeas and flaming cannas. The large 
house across the fields, over the strong stone 
wall, is the Devereux Mansion, — a modern 
house on the site of the old farmhouse visited 
by Longfellow in 1846, and celebrated in his 
poem "The Fire of Driftwood." 



" We sat within the farmhouse old, 

Whose windows, looking o'er the bay, 
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold 
An easy entrance night and day." 

The farmhouse has been gone a long time, 
and the farm itself cut up into many house- 



Marblehead. 



6 7 



lots; but the good old-fashioned barn still 
opens its wide doors at the end of the 
lovely elm-shaded approach. 

Here, through the 
warm summer after- 
noons and evenings, 
the air is filled with 
the rumble of car- 




Easteru Yacht Club 



riages rolling through the narrow street ; 
for it is a favorite drive, and leads past 
the ruins of the old fort and over the narrow 



68 The Puritan Coast. 

causeway by Marblehead Beach to Marble- 
head Neck. 

All around this rugged peninsula are fine 
drives and walks, with broad ocean views on 
one side, and on the other pleasant outlooks 
over the harbor to the old town. Here are 
the headquarters of yachting in the East, and 
the houses of the Eastern and Corinthian 
yacht clubs. 

About the shore are curious formations in 
the rocks, and grand places for watching the 
eddying tides, either in upspringing surf or 
restful open sea. But the finest entertain- 
ment Marblehead offers is not there, but 
rather on the harbor side, at sunset. Then 
the old town, rising with picturesque profile, 
is empurpled against the richly luminous 
sky, and the calm deep waters of the harbor 
reflect the glowing colors of a picture remem- 
bered with delight. 

The way to the old town by land is back 
over the causeway and then to the right. A 
little brook comes from the pond by the 



Marblehead. 69 

Devereux Mansion under great trees, and, 
after crossing the road, wanders off through 
the meadow beyond which lies Marblehead. 

" The strange old-fashioned silent town, 
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort, 
The wooden houses quaint and brown." 

Was the color adjective well chosen? 
" Gray " would have been more truthful. 
I remember Marblehead years ago, much 
less tricked out with paint. When I was 
looking for the scenes of Agnes Surriage's 
girlhood, not long ago, Old Floyd Oirson's 
house was clothed with that soft gray mantle 
which our New England weather casts over 
unpainted wood. Now it is bright yellow ! 

This passion or necessity for paint, vary- 
ing in tint with the caprice of house-owners, 
is the reason our towns have such a motley 
color-effect. In the Old Country, the build- 
ing is mostly of stone, generally quarried in 
the neighborhood. This gives a uniform 
breadth of effect, and is in subtle harmony 



70 The Puritan Coast. 

with the landscape. Here, on the contrary, 
we may have a cinnamon-colored house be- 
tween one of a virulent green and another of 
a bilious blue, these in turn flanked by 
pumpkin yellow and slaughter-house red. 
Where the colors are not so "loud," they 
simply run the scale of the dealer's sample- 
card of ready-mixed tints. 1 There is the 
same difference between the natural color 
of stone or wood and of paint, that there is 
between the fresh complexion of a young 
girl and the rouged and powdered cheeks of 
an actress. 

Washington, when he visited New Eng- 
land- in 1789, marvelled at the houses "being 
built almost entirely of wood ... as the 
country is full of stone, and good clay for 
bricks." The people told him that "on 
account of the fog and the damp they deemed 
them wholesomer, and for that reason pre- 

1 Ruskin says somewhere (I think in " Stones of Ven- 
ice ") that he had never seen a painted house that was 
satisfactory. Yet I suppose that he never dreamed of the 
dreadful combinations which we see every day, and to 
which we have not only grown resigned but callous. 



Marblehead. 71 

ferred wooden buildings." Recently, the 
use of stains and the shingling of walls, 
especially when the shingles are left to 
darken naturally, have greatly improved the 
color-effect. Of course stone has not come 
into vogue except in cities, and the people, 
for many reasons, still prefer wood. 

Pleasant Street is the main highway, 
with its electric line to Lynn and Salem. 
On the right is the Catholic Church, 
"The Star of the Sea," near where the 
roadway has been cut through a part of 
"Work House Rock." On this street the 
vagaries of Marblehead' s builders soon ap- 
pear. Their gable-ends encroach on the 
street; many of the houses have their 
entrance on the side, with no room for 
porches, but with miniature terraced gar- 
dens clambering up and spilling down over 
the rocks. 

Near the station is a monument to the 
memory of the brave Captain Mugford and 
his heroic crew, who captured, off Boston 



72 The Puritan Coast. 

Harbor, a British ship laden with sorely 
needed military stores, including fifteen 
hundred barrels of gunpowder and one thou- 
sand carbines. It was on a beautiful day in 
May, 1776, when, after sending in his prize 
to Washington's needy army, the brave 
patriot was killed while defending his ship 
against an attack by the British. Just one 
hundred years after, this monument was 
erected. 

At the Universalist Church, Rockaway 
Street falls abruptly to a hollow, beyond 
which rise the four Hooper houses with 
their terraced back gardens, and, above them 
all, the tower of Abbot Hall. This is a 
typical view and street. On the left, is 
Summer Street, old-fashioned and quiet, 
its quaint garden gates overhung by trees 
and flowers. Near its end is St. Michael's, 
the third Episcopal Church in Massachu- 
setts, and the fourth in all New England. 
Originally the church had, so it is said, 
seven gables, a tower, and spires, and must, 
as Drake says, have been an antique gem. 



Marblehead. 



73 



v S'*v^*§J ' ^Sta^SA '- > 'V\'l < * fi'ff,--'\- >■'* ' , . ,.'4/1/', 













« w< 



»- _ ^JagSmm % 



1^*1 1 






57. Michaels. 



Not long ago it was hidden by jostling 
neighbors rising in wooden chaos on all 
sides, and had to be approached by a narrow 



74 The Puritan Coast 

lane. Before it now is a little green, but 
of prodigal dimensions, for Marblehead. 
A tiny God's Acre is at its side, hemmed in 
by crowding walls. The church was built 
in 1 7 14. Its interior, with quaint antiqui- 
ties, is worth seeing. Rev. David Mosson, 
who performed the marriage ceremony of 
George Washington and Mrs. Custis, was 
once its pastor. Its organ came from St. 
Paul's, New York, and was used there 
when Washington was inaugurated, in 
1789. 

The Lee Mansion is reached by turning to 
the right, and keeping around the corner. 
It is now occupied by two banks ; but it 
was once the grand house of the town, 
and has sheltered Washington, Lafayette, 
Andrew Jackson, and President Monroe. 
The hall and staircase are interesting ex- 
amples of the architecture of the time in 
which it was built — about 1766. Colonel 
Lee, its owner, was then the great man of 
Marblehead. Though a zealous churchman, 
who might naturally have been expected to 



Marblehead. 



75 



favor the Tories, he nevertheless was an 
ardent patriot, and gave his fortune and his 
life to the cause of liberty. Open-air expos- 






V VS ' 



' 2 -- fciS" - 







Z,^ Mansion. 



ure at Arlington, the night before the Battle 
of Lexington, brought on a sickness from 
which he finally died. 

At the top of the hill is Abbot Hall, 



y6 The Puritan Coast. 

built in iS/6-yy, with money left by Benja- 
min Abbot, a native. It contains reading 
rooms, a library, and some interesting paint- 
ings. Its spire dominates the town and 
commands a magnificent view. Before the 
porch, a quiet old common dozes under its 
elms. 

Behind the Hall, Tucker Street tumbles 
down the hill between irregular old houses, 
packed in like sardines, but still finding room 
for little plots of sea-brightened flowers : old- 
fashioned dahlias, bachelors' buttons, spot- 
ted tiger lilies, asters, and petunias. A 
glimpse of the harbor, the rocks, and cot- 
tages of the Neck over sweet peas and clam- 
bering vines in the tiny front yards; then a 
turn to the right, and again one to the left, 
and at the bottom of the hill is Front Street, 
long and rambling. Along its length the 
houses stand at almost every angle ; and the 
yards are as picturesque as the houses. All 
is enveloped in a pot pourri of marine smells 
from oakum, tar, pitch, and fish, its saltiness 
strangely attenuated at times by a whiff of 



_. l te»s /- - 




I 






- |; 




Front Street. 



Marblehead. 



79 



perfume from the gardens. On the left, 
encroaching on the street, is the 
old Tucker house, the oldest house 






i 
- 



HIP 
jfiltl 



ir^ 



^ -:!,■■ I 



si 



&-• 



^.-# IF I 



^^^^^WMMl 



r-t. 



fe 






HT'H 



rr 



flTrffifBi -^rai 



~^Va ; «&; 



j ! f ■•" • - _ 



£v 







7Vzf backyards are as picturesque as the streets" 



here of which there is any accurate record. 
Beyond is State Street ; from that leads 



80 The Puritan Coast. 

Glover Street to General Glover's house, 
apparently at its end; but Glover Street 
continues to Front Street, so that there is 
no need of turning back. 

Numbered 96, nearly opposite the black- 
smith shop but quite a way back from the 
street, is the house of the General's brother, 
Colonel Glover. This old mansion has 
been divided into two tenements. It is 
further shorn of its dignity, for it used 
to stand in a great garden edged formally 
with box, perfumed by old-fashioned roses, 
and splendid with broad sunflowers and 
stately holly-hocks, and on either side of 
its gate two high posts upheld each a 
gilded eagle, so that it was called the Eagle 
House. 

Twisting and turning, in and out, up and 
down, Front Street reaches Oakum Bay, at 
the end of the electric street railway. Now 
these street-cars do not in the least make 
the spot prosaic to me. Ponderous and 
shrilly complaining, impelled by a formless, 
unseen, and death-dealing energy, they seem 




Tucker House. 



Marblehead. 83 

in no wise unfitting visitors from the city of 
witchcraft to this shore which for so long 
echoed the despair of " The shrieking woman 
of Marblehead." 

Thus the legend. — Two centuries and 
more ago, when the sun-blackened, scarred, 
and crime-etched faces of buccaneers from 
the Spanish Main were familiar in these nar- 
row, rugged streets, a Spanish ship, richly 
laden, was brought into the harbor by her 
pirate captors. Every one of the ship's com- 
pany had been butchered, except a beautiful 
English lady. Her they brought ashore at 
Oakum Bay by night, and most foully mur- 
dered. In the silence of the dark, her heart- 
rending screams were heard by the wives 
and children of the absent fishermen, and 
for over a hundred and fifty years, on each 
anniversary of the dreadful night, the cries 
for mercy of the terrified woman were re- 
peated in a voice shrill, unearthly, blood- 
curdling. This story was believed by the 
most intelligent people of Marblehead. Chief 
Justice Story "averred that he had heard 



84 The Puritan Coast. 

those ill-omened shrieks again and again in 
the still hours of the night." 1 

Looking backward from here up Circle 
Street, Floyd Ireson's house is seen on the 
right. 

'' Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! " 

Skipper "Flud Oirson, " or properly Ben- 
jamin Ireson, " sailed away from a sinking 
wreck " off the Highlands of Cape Cod. His 
defenders claim that he was inclined to at- 
tempt the rescue of the unfortunates on the 
doomed craft, but that his humane disposi- 
tion was overruled by the unanimous voice of 
his craven crew. Whatever the truth may 
be, there is no doubt that he suffered a most 
ignominious punishment. " His memory has 
been pilloried in verse for a crime he did 
not commit." 1 Nor is it the best testimony 
that the torture was carried out by "the 

1 Drake. 




' Gift 




Pirates in Afarblehead, 



Marblehead. 87 

women of Marblehead." 1 However, if the 
fish-wives of his day were true descendants 
of the old settlers, they were quite capable 
of such savagery; for we have the testi- 
mony of Increase Mather, " in a letter to 
Mr. Cotton, 23d of Fifth month, 1677," 
that " Sabbath day was sennight, the women 
of Marblehead, as they came out of the 
meeting-house \ fell upon two Indians that 
were brought in as captives, and, in a 
tumultuous way, very barbarously murdered 
them." 

We read, too, that later on, over in Bev- 
erly, in 1777: "About 60 women marched in 
regular order to the wharves, and seized a 
quantity of sugar which merchants had re- 
fused to sell at staple prices by reason of 
depreciated currency." 

1 Mr. Roads says, by men and boys he was tarred and 
feathered and dragged through the town in a dory. The 
bottom fell out at Work House Rock (see page 71) and he 
was then put in a cart and hauled as far as Salem, where 
the authorities forbid the rabble entrance. 

In a letter to Mr. Roads, Whittier writes : " I knew 
nothing of the particulars, and the narrative of the ballad 
was pure fancy." 



88 The Puritan Coast. 

The women of the North Shore were doubt- 
less worthy mates for their rough husbands. 

Front Street follows around Oakum Bay 
to Old Fort Sewall, about which is a delight- 
ful walk. Back of the fort, on the western 
slope of the hill overlooking Little Harbor, 
stood the lowly cottage in which Agnes Sur- 
riage lived before fortune called her to 
the Fountain Inn, there to meet the young 
nobleman whose love was to raise her through 
joy and sorrow, sin and repentance, so far 
above her childhood's condition. 

The site of the old hostelry is reached by 
returning on Front Street to Franklin Street. 
At the end of the latter four streets meet, 
and the one at the right, Orne Street, winds 
by picturesque old houses and corners to the 
old burying-ground. Just before reaching 
the top of the hill, a path on the right leads 
to two cottages, with an old-fashioned well 
under the shade of some hardy apple-trees. 
This is the well of the Fountain Inn; the 
building itself probably stood on the corner 











Floyd /resort's House. 



Marble head. 



9i 



of Orne Street, and has been gone many 
years. The old well was for a long time for- 
gotten, and was discovered *>> . 
not long ago, by chance. ^ u. 



■ 








CY</ TFV/7 0/" Fountain hm 



'J3Z' <*- 



After it was cleaned out, the water bubbled 
up as clear and refreshing as ever. 

The strangely romantic story of Agnes 
has been told many times, 1 however I ven- 



1 See, in particular, Mr. Bynner's novel " Agnes Surriage," 
Dr. Holmes' poem " Agnes," and the Rev. Elias Mason's 



9 2 



The Puritan Coast. 



ture to insert here an outline of it from the 
account by the Rev. Elias Mason. 

It was in the summer of 1742 that Sir 







0/</ ^OTf« * « the site of f%< '■ | 

*7z^ Fountain Inn 



■ ; --'"-"*i£ ■'■ 



.'* <* 



5: 



^ 1 









Harry Frankland, collector of his Majesty's 
customs at Boston, rode up this hill and, dis- 
mounting at the Fountain Inn, chanced upon 
the beautiful kitchen-wench. 



circumstantial and curious account, " Sir Charles Henry 
Frankland, Baronet." 




Sir Harry meets Agnes Surriage. 



Marblehead. 95 

" Poor Agnes ! with her work half done, 
They caught her unaware, 
As, humbly, like a praying nun, 
She knelt upon the stair." 

The young baronet found her washing up 
the floor and stairs. Ragged and dirty 
clothes could not dim her radiant beauty. 
She was barefoot, and he gave her, at part- 
ing, a crown to buy herself some shoes and 
stockings. In the autumn, Frankland came 
again, and found her barefooted as before. 
To his questioning, she replied that she had 
indeed bought shoes and stockings with the 
money given her; but that such finery she 
kept to wear on Sundays only. The sweet- 
ness of her voice, as he heard her cheerfully 
singing at her work, her beauty, modesty, 
and the sprightliness of her mind, quite cap- 
tivated him ; and with the consent of her 
parents, he sent her to Boston to be edu- 
cated. She was taught singing, dancing, 
and whatever accomplishments were consid- 
ered necessary to a fine lady at that time. 
All this was, of course, at Frankland 's ex- 



g6 The Puritan Coast. 

pense and under his direction ; for her father, 
a rough, ignorant fisherman, was always at 
his wits' ends to keep the wolf from the door. 

In this self-constituted guardianship, Sir 
Harry and his beautiful ward, both young, 
were of necessity a great deal together, and 
a natural result followed, — they fell in love. 
For years, they lived together in Boston and 
Hopkinton. In 1754, he was called home 
to carry on a suit-at-law, and Agnes accom- 
panied him. The disdain with which she 
was received by his noble relatives made her 
feel keenly the ignominy of her false posi- 
tion. It was therefore with pleasure that, 
when the occasion offered itself, they em- 
barked for Portugal. 

In the terrible earthquake at Lisbon, in 
1755, Frankland was buried in the ruins, 
and was in great peril of his life. Happily, 
by the energetic devotion of his loving mis- 
tress, he was saved from a living tomb, 
wounded in body, but healed in mind. His 
conscience was quickened, and he at once 
repaired his wrong to Agnes by making her 




Lady Frankland, 



* 



Marblehead. 



99 



Lady Frank land. Soon afterwards, they re- 
turned to England, where she was received 
with affection and honor by his family. She 
outlived her husband, and, in 1782, was 







" Old Brig," birthplace of Moll Pitcher 

married to a wealthy banker of Chichester, 
England. 



Across Orne Street, No. 42, is "The Old 
Brig," where Moll Pitcher passed her girl- 



ioo The Puritan Coast. 

hood. She seems to have inherited her 
claim to supernatural power from her father, 
John Dimond. His was a character strangely 
picturesque, whether we regard him as an 
impostor or a sincere believer in his Own 
brainsick pretensions. The historian Drake 
says: "He was in the habit of going to the 
old burying-ground on the hill, whenever a 
violent gale at sea arose, and in that lonely 
place, in the midst of the darkness and the 
storm, to astound and terrify the simple 
fisher-folk in the following manner. He 
would direct vessels then at sea how to 
weather the roughest gale, — pacing up and 
down among the gravestones, and ever and 
anon, in a voice distinctly heard above the 
howling of the tempest, shout his orders to 
the helmsman or the crew, as if he were 
actually on the quarterdeck and the scene 
all before him. Very few doubted his abil- 
ity to bring a vessel safely into port." 1 

On the top of the hill the first church was 
built, and about it the early settlers laid 

1 Drake. 



Marblehead. 



101 



their dead, in the earth-filled crevices of the 
rocks. The church was moved away long 
ago; but burial of the dead there has long 
been continued, perhaps to the present time. 




■ 



w 






% 



Getter al Glover's Tomb. 



General Glover's tomb is here, and Captain 
Mugford's unknown grave. 

At the highest point is the seamen's 
monument, and about it seats and a shelter. 
On the benches the old men sit, for they are 



102 The Puritan Coast. 

content to rest. Their weather-beaten faces 
are darkened by contrast with their white 
beards and hair. They talk of the past, of 
the sea, of ships and sailors. The broad 
horizon of the deep is before them, and about 
them are the graves. 



On the rugged hill across the street is 
Fountain Park. From its little summer- 
house is an unobstructed view of the harbor 
and bay. The slope below is littered with 
the picturesque belongings of the lobster 
men, scattered about their quaint huts. Once 
this shore was lined with wharves, and the 
hill covered with fish-flakes. Here, or upon 
the two little islands near by, was made the 
first settlement. Orne Street continues from 
the hill down into this oldest part of the 
town, which is called Barnegat. At its end 
is Peach's Point and the entrance to Salem 
Harbor. Beyond is the beautiful Beverly 
and Manchester shore, across a bay dotted by 
rocky islets and dangerous reefs that break its 
breeze-whipped waters into foam and spray, 



Marblehead. 



103 



white accents to its mingled blue and green 
and purple. Beyond all, over bay and fort 




Lobstennau'' ' s Hut 



and town and harbor, the ocean stretches 
the restful monotony of its blue rim till 



io4 



The Puritan Coast. 



hidden by the roof-trees and steeples of the 
old town. 




~3 '^S£^-Atr^^M^ 




0/rf Stone CJmrch. 



Orne Street, retraced to its beginning, 
leads to Washington Street. On the right 
side of the latter is the old " North Church," 
and nearly opposite is No. 44, the homestead 
of Captain Thomas Gerry. In one of the old 



Marblehead. 



">5 



mansion's chambers, unchanged to this day, 
was born the captain's distinguished son, 




Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration 
of Independence, and once Vice-President 
of the United States. 



106 The Puritan Coast. 

Farther on, stands, in the middle of the 
road, the old Town House. This is the 
Faneuil Hall of Marblehead, and in it 
the town's famous Revolutionary regiment, 
called the Amphibions, was recruited." 

At the right of the Town Hall, Mugford 
Street leads up a slight rise to the Unita- 
rian church. And just beyond the church, 
on the corner of Back Street, is the house 
in which the brave Captain Mugford set up 
housekeeping with his young bride. From 
here, agitated by her tearful embrace, he set 
hopefully forth on that gallant adventure, so 
fruitfully precious to his countrymen, and 
from which he was brought back dying, to 
receive from his young wife a last caress. It 
was into the house by the church, nearly 
opposite, that they sadly bore him ; and 
there he breathed his last. This house was 
her home before marriage, and the scene of 
their courtship; it belonged to her father, 
John Griste, and has always remained in the 
possession of the family. 



Sterns- , iA \- 



§!»/ j 







^ 
V 



X > ) \'i 



Marblehead. 109 

On the corner of Elm Street is the sol- 
diers' monument. This street may be fol- 
lowed to the Salem Road ; but it is pleasanter 
to return to Washington Street, on which, 
just after passing the town hall on the left, 
is the birthplace of Judge Story. The old 
house has been divided, and the lower story 
is now used for an apothecary shop. 

Pleasant Street, which is the entrance, is 
also the way out of this old-fashioned town, 
the quaintest and most antique on the coast. 
And though these qualities commend it to 
the artist and the antiquary, it must to all 
Americans be dear for the independence, 
courage, bravery, and ever-ready patriotism 
of its adventurous sons. On land as well 
as by sea, in every hour of need, they have 
always answered unfalteringly to their coun- 
try's call. 




" The road from Salem to Marblehead, four 
miles, is pleasant indeed (so I found it)." 

So wrote John Adams in 1776, and a hun- 
dred and twenty years afterwards it may 
again truly be called " pleasant indeed. " All 
the way, by open fields and long rows of 
apple-trees, it is good wheeling. At the 
bend of the road, before it dips to Forest 
River, there should be a fine view over the 
valley; but it is cut off by a hideous blue 
and boastful advertising fence, with which 



Salem. 



1 1 1 



another, a black and white conundrum, dis- 
putes dishonors. 

Below the bridge, the river empties into a 
broad lagoon at high water, and at low water 
wanders off through the mud-flats to Salem 
Harbor. Lafayette Street, a fine drive, leads 
by some of the best houses to Central Street, 
which, as its name implies, is near the cen- 
tre of the city. A statue has been raised 
here to that apostle of temperance, Father 
Mathew. It stands appropriately on the site 
of a spring which supplied water to the first 
settlers. That it was good water we know. 
Did not old Governor Dudley declare there 
was " good water to drinke till wine or beare 
can be made " ? 

The early comers would naturally have 
settled near some sweet fountain such as 
this was, until the day when they could build 
houses and dig wells. In fact, near by, in 
Charter Street, is an old witness of a time 
not far removed from the first settlement, 
— the Charter Street Cemetery, known in 
early days as " Burying Point." 



ii2 The Puritan Coast. 

Now, in Salem, the stranger is mostly 
interested in those things connected with the 
Witchcraft Delusion, or in those places made 
precious by their association with the life 
and work of Hawthorne. And in the old 
Charter Street Burying-ground both these 
interests are served, for here lies buried the 
old witch-judge, Colonel John Hathorne, and 
at one corner stands the Grimshaw house, 
in which Hawthorne courted his wife. This 
old house, practically unchanged to-day, 
figures in the " Dolliver Romance," and 
again in "Dr. Grimshaw's Secret," though 
in no agreeable light, which seems strange 
considering that Hawthorne here won his 
wife, and that his memories must have been 
far removed from the gloomy pictures of 
his romance. Its garden fence is close 
to the oldest graves, with their quaint, 
mouldering headstones and curious epitaphs. 
Here lies "Dr. John Swinnerton, Physi- 
cian," who appears in "The House of the 
Seven Gables," and again as the ancient 
apothecary at the sign of "The Brazen Ser- 



Salem. 113 

pent" in the "Dolliver Romance." Near 
by is the grave of Cotton Mather's younger 
brother Nathaniel, " ' An aged man at nine- 
teen years,' saith the gravestone." Here 
was buried Giles Corey's first wife, and 
in the cemetery are also buried " Gov- 
ernor Bradstreet, Chief Justice Lynde, and 
others, whose virtues, honors, courage, and 
sagacity have nobly illustrated the history 
of Salem." 

Essex Street, Salem's principal thorough- 
fare, is reached by Liberty Street. From 
the corner of these two streets, a half 
block to the left, is the East India Marine 
Hall, containing extensive collections of 
historical portraits, natural history and eth- 
nological specimens, and curiosities of many 
kinds. 

Nearly opposite the corner of Liberty, on 
the other side of Essex Street, are the Cadet 
Armory, Plummer Hall, the Salem Athenaeum, 
and the Essex Institute. The last holds col- 
lections of paintings, prints, cooking utensils, 

8 



ii4 The Puritan Coast. 

household implements, weapons, pottery, 
china, coins, and many other objects of inter- 
est. 1 In the rear of the Institute is the frame 
of the first Puritan house of worship in the 
New World. It may be visited on applica- 
tion to the secretary. 

The third street on the right beyond the 
Institute is Union Street. In the modest 
gambrel-roofed house now numbered 27, 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the great romancer, 
was born. The house was built before the 
witch-craft delusion, and came into the pos- 
session of the novelist's grandfather in 1772. 
The house itself is little changed since Haw- 
thorne's birth ; but it then stood in a garden, 
and what is now arid and unattractive was 
sweet with blade and leaf and blossom. Staid 
and Sabbath like quiet brooded over its grass- 
edged precincts, and its ways were ordered 
by New England thrift and neatness. It is 
hard now to re-invest the place with that old- 

1 Visitors should buy the " Guide to Salem," pub- 
lished by the Institute ; the author is largely indebted 
to it. 



Salem. 



"5 



time charm. Too near and evident is the 
untidy ash-barrel, too pungent the odorous 
herring and cabbage, too distracting the 




Hawthorne's Birthplace 



shrill quarrel and grating discord of clamor- 
ous hucksters. It is only afterwards, and in 
the mind's eye, that it is possible to connect 
the to-day's fallen estate with the coming of 
that dreaming weaver of romance. 



n6 



The Puritan Coast. 



Numbered ioj and 12 on Herbert Street, 
the next street leading from Essex Street, 
and back of Hawthorne's birthplace, is the 




The Manning Homestead. 



old Manning homestead, the property of his 
grandfather, and to which his widowed mother 
removed in 1808, when Nathaniel was four 



Salem. 117 

years old. Most of his boyhood was spent 
here ; and he came back to it, at intervals, for 
longer or shorter visits. The house is out- 
wardly square and ugly, and the interior has 
been cut up into tenements. However, it is 
of great interest, on account of its associa- 
tion with his early work. Hawthorne's room 
was in the southwest corner of the third story, 
overlooking his birthplace. Of it, he himself 
has written : " Here I sit in my old accus- 
tomed chamber, where I used to sit in days 
gone by. Here I have written many tales. 
Should I have a biographer, he ought to 
make great mention of this chamber in my 
memoirs, because so much of my lonely 
youth was wasted here." And again : " In 
this dismal chamber Fame was won." 

At the other end of Herbert Street is 
Derby Street, and on the corner is a house 
to which Hawthorne was always welcome, 
where he spent a part of his time in a cham- 
ber kept ever ready for him, and in which, 
and in the old garden, he wrote some of his 
earlier stories. Antique and dilapidated, it 



n8 



The Puritan Coast. 



is one of the most picturesque houses in 
Salem ; for the summer-house, where the 




^- 1 ; fsfcs 



Sg ' li "T* W p 

U>\ ft ci . _<-*, 



S J > 



Where Hawthorne toas 
always welcome. 




romancer loved to sit, is tumbling to pieces, 
and the garden is forlorn in its neglect. All 
sorts of weeds grow rankly in its wastes, and 






1 I 



'f'\ ) <?-.- 

k. f =~S ^ - r T"J fi-n ■ 






3 -GEEr-'^rtssga 




O 



- \cr.C* C: : H 

— ■ -4 — %**/ ' 



Salem. 121 

a little thicket of crowding poplars nearly 
hides, with the gray silver of their leaves, 
the purple and white of the ancient lilacs and 
the weather-beaten grays of the lower story. 

At No. 180 Derby Street, is the Crown- 
inshield house, in the eastern side of which 
lived General James Miller, the hero of Lundy's 
Lane. On the opposite corner is the custom- 
house, built of brick, with wooden columns, 
capitals, and balustrades, with a broad red- 
flagged sidewalk, and generous steps and 
porch. The gilded " truculent bird " still 
perches aloft, and " the flag with vertical 
bars" still floats over all. Hawthorne's room 
is shown here; but the desk on which he 
scratched his name is now at the Essex 
Institute. One of the upper rooms is the 
scene of his fictitious discovery of the em- 
broidered scarlet letter, and his interview 
with the spook of Surveyor Pue. 

Across the street, is the old custom-house 
wharf, edged with sheds in various stages 
of decrepitude and disuse. Under their 



122 The Puritan Coast. 

leaky roofs I saw some old horse-cars that 
were cast away. They had, in their youth, 
supplanted the stage-coaches in which Haw- 
thorne's relatives were financially interested, 
and now they were in turn displaced by the 
electric cars. Here they were rotting and 
rusting away like those very stage-coaches 
in which Hawthorne used to play when he 
was a boy. And fast to the wharf lay a great 
dismantled ship, the " Mindora," only a care- 
taker aboard. She paid for herself on 
the first voyage, but after thirty years of 
service, the competition of steam had so 
lowered freights that it no longer was ex- 
pedient to send her to sea, and so she lies 
here inactive, to deteriorate, as everything 
inactive must. 1 The long wharf curves at 
the end, like the beak of " the truculent bird," 
and at its end is a little light-house. Across 
the harbor, the shore of Marblehead stretches 
northeasterly to Naugus Head, and landward 
lies the dreary water front of Salem. 

1 Early in 1897 the " Mindora " was sold and towed away 
to be altered over into a coal-barge. 




Hawthorne and the wraith of Collector Pite. 



Salem. 



125 



Farther down Derby Street is Turner Street, 
on which is an old house that belonged to 




: 



f. 



" 7 ■■ / 



a 



Old Custom House Wharf. 



the Ingersols, relatives of the Hawthornes, 
a house to which the romancer was a fre- 



126 The Puritan Coast. 

quent visitor. It is the last dwelling on the 
right, and next the Seaman's Bethel. This 
house is called " The House of the Seven 
Gables." Originally it had five gables, but 
they have disappeared under a new roof. 
Its exterior seems modern enough, but a 
visit to the inside will show that it is truly 
very old. The old gables may be traced in 
the attic ; parts of the house are pointed out, 
which, it is claimed, agree with the story. 
Really the house may have had but a small 
part in suggesting to Hawthorne his fanciful 
" House of the Seven Gables," but it is so 
closely associated with the author's intimate 
life, that it is worth a visit. 

Turner Street leads back to Essex Street, 
and from the latter turns Washington Square, 
East, which bounds one side of the large and 
pleasant common, cut by paths and malls, 
and shaded by beautiful trees. Many of the 
great elms were planted in 1802, and the 
common was then used as a training-field 
by the militia. It is the pleasantest resting- 
spot in Salem. 



Salem. 127 

After turning into Washington Square, 
North, the third street on the right is Mall 
Street. On the corner is a curious old- 
fashioned double house used for a curiosity 
shop. These abound in Salem ; in fact, if 
antiques do not represent a local industry, 
as some mockers hint, they are no incon- 
siderable article of the city's trade. 

A short distance down Mall Street, No. 14, 
on the right, is a comfortable hip-roofed 
house standing with end to the street, and 
shaded by trees in its pleasant garden. 
This is one of the most interesting houses 
in Salem, for in it was written " The Scar- 
let Letter," the masterpiece by which the 
world best knows, and will longest remem- 
ber Hawthorne. He moved here in 1847, 
and his study was the front room in the third 
story. 

When he lost his office in the customs, " it 
was to this house he went home to tell the 
serious news to his wife. It was here, upon 
learning it, that she said, ' Very well ! now 
you can write your romance ; ' and it was 



128 



The Puritan Coast. 



here that his prudent wife at the same time, 
and in answer to Hawthorne's query as to 
how they should live meanwhile, opened the 
bureau-drawer and showed him the gold she 




House in which " The Scarlet Letter " was written. 

had saved from the portion of his salary 
which, from time to time, he had placed in 
her hands. . . . Here Fields found Haw- 
thorne, despondent and hovering near the 
stove, and had the interesting conversation 



Salem. 129 

with him given in Fields' ' Yesterdays with 
Authors.' " 

Brown Street issues from Washington 
Square, West, and on the corner of it and 
St. Peter's Street is St. Peter's church. It 
is a pleasant ivy-clad, stone edifice with a 
square tower, rising between two tiny church- 
yards. In the one on the right, close by the 
fence, is the grave of Hawthorne's ghostly 
visitor: "Jonathan Pue, Esq., Late surveyor 
and searcher of his magestie's customs in 
Salem, New England." 

The church is modern, having been built 
in 1833. Within is a tablet "In memory of 
John Brown, to whose intrepidity in the 
Cause of Religious Freedom, this the first 
Episcopal Society gathered in N. E., under 
God, owed its establishment in 1629, and to 
Philip English who gave the land." This 
last gentleman was one of the accused in the 
Witchcraft Delusion. He and his wife were 
both denounced, and only escaped death by 
fleeing to New York from Boston jail, with 
the connivance of Governor Sir William 

9 



130 The Puritan Coast. 

Phips, and especially aided by the Rever- 
end Joshua Moody. After the town's mad- 
ness had passed away, Mr. English and his 
wife returned to Salem, where Mrs. English 
died from the effects of the cruel treatment 
she had received. It is a satisfaction to learn 
that Mr. Moody "was commended by all 
discerning men ; " but nevertheless so greatly 
was he persecuted by the angry and resent- 
ful multitude, that he returned to his old 
charge at Portsmouth, N. H. 

Farther down St. Peter's Street is a very 
old house, built in 1684 by John Ward, 
sometimes incorrectly called the Waller 
house. 

Church Street is almost a continuation of 
Brown Street, and leads to Washington 
Street, where stood the court-house in which 
the witchcraft trials were held. On a bronze 
tablet, near the corner of Lynde Street, are 
set forth the main facts of that unhappy delu- 
sion. The hotel on this street occupies a 
very old mansion with a quaintly-decorated 
cupola, which may be visited. 



Salem. 131 

Near the present centre of Washington 
Street, the Town House Square of to-day, 
stood the town pump celebrated by Haw- 
thorne. The well dried up after the railway 
tunnel was built. 

The oldest house in Salem or vicinity is 
the " Old Witch House," once owned by 
Roger Williams ; it is No. 310 Essex Street, 
at the corner of North Street. Though 
changed a great deal, some parts of it 
remain as they were, including the old 
chimney in the rear of the drug-store. The 
truth is, that it has been connected with the 
witchcraft delusion by tradition only. How- 
ever, if one wishes to see a house whose 
connection with that gruesome time is un- 
doubted, let him examine the house No. 315 
Essex Street, which is little changed, and 
was the home of the dyer, Shattuck, whose 
child was said to have been bewitched by 
Bridget Bishop. 

In this direction is Gallows' Hill, but there 
is really nothing to see there. I went there 
years ago, to make a drawing for Longfellow's 



132 The Puritan Coast. 

" New England Tragedies," and I confess 
that I have never gone again. The witch- 
craft tragedy is an unpleasant subject, when- 
ever it is approached with the seriousness it 
must deserve from any but the most thought- 
less ; but, except to the historian or philoso- 
pher, it must claim only a morbid interest. 
It is better to think of Salem's commercial 
achievements, her patriotism and philan- 
thropy, and to visit her museums, her libra- 
ries and schools. 







BEVERLY is reached by returning to Wash- 
ington Square, North, and following Winter 
and Bridge streets to Essex Bridge. A 
refreshing breeze generally draws up the 
river from the sea, flecks the bay with white, 
and sings mournfully a long monotony in the 
wires overhead. Though the view on both 
sides is fine, that up the river is marred by 
the railway causeway. Across the bay, " The 
Willows " is cheerful with flags and music, 
and the old fort peaceful in decay. In the 



134 The Puritan Coast. 

harbor are mingled picturesquely sail-boats 
and yachts, their slender spars and snowy 
canvas contrasted with the dingy sails of 
rusty coasters and grimy, clumsy coal-barges. 

Just across the bridge, Cabot Street leads 
to Front Street, and at No. 22 of the latter 
is an old house, once used as a church, in 
which in 18 10 was established the first Sun- 
day-school in America. Bartlett and Stone 
Streets then lead to Lothrop Street, a famous 
drive, overlooking the sea. Only a little way 
down the latter is a pleasant resting-place 
in a little summer-house ; it stands at the 
head of three flights of steps descending to 
the beach. Shady and cool, it commands a 
broad view of Beverly Cove and the mouth 
of Salem Harbor. 

When I last rested here, an old man was 
sitting contentedly on one of the benches. 
He told me that he sailed into Beverly Cove 
for the first time when he was fourteen years 
old, in a coaster from Maine. "And," he 



Beverly. 



135 



added, "that was seventy-nine years ago." 
He liked, so he said, to come here and watch 
the water and the vessels, for, having always 
followed the sea, he was lonesome and uneasy 




Beverly Cove. 



when away from it. He named the islands 
to me, starting from the left over Wood- 
bury's Point. First, came Great and Little 
Misery, but these seemed almost a part of 



136 The Puritan Coast. 

the mainland; then Baker's, with its twin 
lights; and nearer, Great Haste and Coney, 
islets both ; and farther off, between them, 
Eagle Island, on which fat gooseberries used 
to grow ; and last, over against Salem Neck, 
Lowell's Island, with its institution. I 
asked him whether, in his time, these islands 
had ever been wooded. He answered that 
they were bare when he first saw them (18 17), 
and that in his boyhood, old men, as old as 
he was now, could not remember having ever 
seen any trees upon them. 

So the islands must have been cleared a 
long time ago. Wooded they were, for the 
Rev. Francis Higginson wrote in his journal 
in June, 1629: — 

"Monday, 29th, as we passed along to Naim- 
keake [t. c, Salem] it was wonderful to behold so 
many islands replenished with thicke wood and 
high trees, and many fayere green pastures." 

In the cove, many coasters were anchored. 
The old sailor said that most of them had 
been there several days, that they expected 



Beverly. 137 

the equinoctial, and were therefore afraid to 
trust themselves off a lee shore, and though 
in their present anchorage they were exposed 
to the winds, they would ride in safety 
there, for the reefs and islands broke all the 
force of the seas. So the rocks shelter as 
well as destroy. 

He also told me that he would rather be 
cast away on rocks than on sand ; and he 
instanced two wrecks, — one at Gloucester, 
where a vessel had come on the rocks, and 
the crew had crawled ashore, over the bow- 
sprit ; the other at Swampscott, where " every 
soul, including a cat and dog, ''' just walked 
out on the jibboom, and dropped right down 
into the road. When a vessel goes on the 
sands, however, almost every one is surely 
lost. 

There is a long coast from here to some 
fine willows and a fountain, by a lane lead- 
ing to the other end of the beach, beyond 
which the first turn to the right leads to 
Ober Street, and thence by Neptune and 



133 



The Puritan Coast. 



Bay View streets, to Paul's Head. These 
streets are much like English lanes, and for 
one in love with beauty it is no place to 
hurry. 

Instead of disfiguring the landscape, as 
they too often do, the houses add to it a pic- 










Paul's Head. 



turesque feature, standing as they do amid 
velvety lawns and banks of flowers, and sep- 
arated from the road by vine-clad walls or 
beautiful shrubs and hedges. Under green 
oaks and maples their gardens overhang the 
sea in unexpected variety. 



Beverly. 139 

White with the dazzling white which only 
whitewash can give, and beside which all 
other whites are gray, the square prim light- 
house tower enhances and deepens the blue 
of sky and bay. The keeper's home is a 
chalet-like cottage, from whose walls slope 
the grassy banks, pretty with flowers, down 
to the rocky shore. What a contrast is the 
berth here to one in the wave-shaken tower 
on Minot's Ledge, or in an ever-tossing 
lightship over some lonely shoals! 

Before returning to the road, it is interest- 
ing to look up the old breastworks back of 
the lighthouse; for this point was fortified 
during the Revolution, and the esplanade 
just beyond the light, and now divided 
amongst fine estates, was, during the strug- 
gle with the mother country, a great training 
ground and camp for the colonists. 

The first turn to the right, after the road 
has been retraced a little, leads by Neptune 
Street to Hale Street. It is good wheeling, 



140 The Puritan Coast. 

but out of sight of the sea. However, after 
turning to the right, by the blacksmith-shop 
at Chapman's Corner, the street suddenly 
enters a stretch of woodland exquisitely 
beautiful. 

At times the road is so shadowed by the 
splendid overhanging trees that only here 
and there is it flecked by narrow shafts of 
sunshine which have struggled through the 
leafy screen. Paths and driveways lead, 
discreetly and furtively, to foliage-hidden 
houses. The trees rise high above tumbled 
rocks and bowlders. From the covert of 
ferns and sombre depths of shade, they lift 
their trunks and branches to the sun. This 
is the edge of the famous Witch Woods, 
thus named because it is so hard to find 
one's way that they were believed to be 
bewitched. 

The early settlers held these woods in 
great fear, believing them infested by lions 
at least, if not worse ! The author of " New 
England's Prospect," though he admits that 
he himself had never seen any lions, de- 



Beverly. 141 

clares, quaintly, that " Some likewise, being 
lost in the woods, have heard such terrible 
roarings, as have made them much aghast ; 
which must be either devils or lions ; there 
being no other creatures which use to roar, 
saving bears, which have not such a terrible 
kind of roaring." But to-day, the edge of 
the forest seems more like a delightful park 
than the lair of savage beasts, clawed or 
cloven of foot, and, so cleverly has it all 
been arranged, that its sylvan character is 
not lost, nor is the presence of the near 
estates too keenly felt. 

As I caught, now and then, a glimpse of 
some fine house, or passed the rolling car- 
riages and other evidences of Beverly's 
wealth, I recalled with amusement the peti- 
tion to the General Court, in 1671, of the 
venerable Roger Conant, " who hath bin a 
planter in New England fortie yeers and 
upwards," praying that the name be changed 
from Beverly to that of his native town, 
Budleigh, and giving as his first and prin- 



142 The Puritan Coast. 

cipal reason "the great dislike and discon- 
tent of many of our people for this name of 
Beverly, because (we being a small place) it 
hath caused on us a constant nickname of 
Beggarly ! " The petition was not granted, 
and time has taken away Roger Conant's 
cause of complaint. 

A regret will come, sometimes, that one is 
so shut off from the shore ; and one reverts 
mentally to the open freedom of the cliff at 
Newport ; but the road soon winds back, or 
the shore curves in, and suddenly there rises 
the sea's edge; the bay and islands follow. 
It is the famous view over Mingo Beach. 

The first sight of any celebrated view is 
apt to be disappointing. Either zest is 
dulled and pleasure discounted by anticipa- 
tion, or overpraise has raised too great an 
expectancy. This view at Mingo Beach, for 
example, has been often compared to that of 
the Bay of Naples ; yet all they have in 
common is that beauty of sky and water to 



Beverly 



14, 



be expected in a common latitude. The 
shores themselves have no resemblance. 




Mingo Beach. 



Nothing could be more unlike the steep 
volcanic slopes of Naples, 

" Where the waves and mountains meet," 

than these low, wooded shores. Lowell's 
and Baker's islands do not remind one of 



144 The Puritan Coast. 

Ischia and Capri, whose craggy precipices 
tower over two thousand feet above the sea. 
Think, too, of Monte Sant' Angelo, rising 
abruptly from Castelmare, nearly a mile, 
while, above buried Herculaneum and Pom- 
peii, Vesuvius hangs her white wreath of 
smoke, and Naples rears her hills, topped by 
mediaeval castles. Through the burning- 
mountain, Nature speaks of past destruction, 
and ever menaces the future. The frowning 
castles and towers recite man's long struggle 
against oppression and cruelty, kingcraft and 
priestcraft, his fight for liberty, security, and 
happiness. And the stern spirit of all this 
is shared by our shores as well as the com- 
mon beauty. If the volcano is more terrible, 
it is no fiercer than the treacherous sea, 
which yearly exacts its tribute of death. 
Even the name of the beach here perpetuates 
the memory of slavery. 1 Salem, like Naples, 
has been scourged by cruelty and supersti- 
tion. The people must ever struggle against 

1 It is named after a negro slave of Beverly, Robin 
Mingo. 



Beverly. 145 

greed and oppression, which only change 
their form, not their nature. But outwardly 
the shore has an appearance, almost bour- 
geois, of restful peace, comfort, and 
prosperity. 

Comparisons should be carefully made, for 
they will arise; they are our only measures. 
As I leaned over the wall here, at the close 
of a calm afternoon, the blue sea barely 
wrinkled by the afternoon breeze, reminded 
me of the Mediterranean. Surely, it was 
quite as blue; for our idea of that vaunted 
sea abroad has come to us through the praises 
in English prose and verse. Heavenly blue 
it must seem to British eyes, used to the 
gray and yellow seas of the Channel, or 
the cold North Sea, over which " Go rolling 
the storm-clouds, the formless, dark, gray 
daughters of the air." 

But one sea must not be lauded at the ex- 
pense of another. Each has its particular 
individual beauty. And this same gray 
North Sea I have known the quintessence of 
sunlight. Once, from a steamer's deck, I 

10 



146 The Puritan Coast. 

had been watching the coast of Holland, a 
mother-of-pearl horizon over the white- 
capped sea, when suddenly the ship slowed 
down and I crossed to the port side. Over 
the bow was Flushing, its walls drenched and 
belabored by the dashing surf, that broke 
into great sheets of spray and went flying 
over the walls into the streets and windows, 
and onto the very roofs. The sun flashed 
on the waves in almost painful brilliancy, 
and the sea was all yellow and white; and 
over this heaving yellow sea came a pilot- 
boat, yellow too, with a tawny sail, and 
manned by a crew all in yellow oilskins 
(except one harmoniously green), and all 
drenched and flashing in the day beams and 
sparkling foam, — a glorious symphony in 
yellow, and the keenest expression of sun- 
light I have ever seen. 

As for blue and green, the Mediterranean 
and our own sea are but as ashes, when com- 
pared to the azure and emerald glowing over 
the coral sands and ledges of Bermuda, 
" By bays, the peacock's neck in hue." 



Beverly. H7 

Our own sea, like the Mediterranean or 
any other, follows the changes of the sky, 
and so it runs the subtle scale of cloudy 
grays, the rosy, silvery morning tints, all the 
yellows and reds of sunset, and the sombre 
tones of night. Still it is often an intense 
blue, deepened to purple over sunken reefs, 
and enhanced by emerald pools over patches 
of sand. 

Yes, as I said, it was very blue that calm 
afternoon. On the horizon rested a low bank 
of clouds, like distant fog, and above it, the 
sky melted through changing opalescent 
color into deep azure. South of the zenith, 
hung the moon, nearly full, but pale and 
faint. The incoming yachts caught the yel- 
lowing rays of the sun, and slowly made the 
harbor. Only the sound of faintly splashing 
water rose from the warm-toned rocks below ; 
no sound of voices broke the decorous quiet 
of the road. Occasionally, came the rumble 
of carnages, the impact of hoofs, or the soft 
purr of a coasting wheel. As the sun dropped 
lower, all the east glowed with reflected 



148 



The Puritan Coast. 



glory, — sea, shore, and sky echoed the west ; 
Color and Light, the two great magicians, 



M'v 




Catholic Church. 



transmuted our familiar coast and bay into 
a slowly fading loveliness, as night came on. 



Beverly. 



149 



One turns away regretfully from such 
beauty. Farther on, the way is less interest- 
ing, and at Pride's crosses the railway, and 
again at Beverly Farms, three-quarters of a 




" Beverly-by-the-Depot. 



mile beyond. On the way is Emerson's pretty 
Catholic church by vine-hung cottages, which 
together make a picturesque note. Just be- 
fore reaching the Farms' station, last on the 
right, is the house once occupied by Oliver 



150 The Puritan Coast. 

Wendell Holmes, and from which he dated 
his letters, " Beverly-by-the-Depot," in emu- 
lation of Manchester-by-the-Sea. Nearly op- 
posite, in the last house on the left, square 
and old-fashioned, once lived Lucy Lareom. 
We have her own testimony that it was on 
this road between Marblehead and Beverly 
that she used to see, sitting wistfully at the 
window, " Hannah, binding shoes." Not 
quite here, however, for it must have been 
somewhere in sight of the sea — 

" May is passing, — 
Mid the apple-boughs a pigeon coos. 

Hannah shudders, 
For the wild sou'wester mischief brews. 
Round the rocks of Marblehead, 
Outward bound, a schooner sped : 
Silent, lonesome, 
Hannah 's at the window binding shoes. 

" 'T is November: 
Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews. 

From Newfoundland 
Not a sail returning will she lose : 
Whispering hoarsely, ' Fishermen, 
Have you, have you heard of Ben? ' 
Old with watching, 
Hannah's at the window binding shoes. 



Beverly. 



151 



" Twenty winters 
Bleach and tear the rugged shore she views ; 

Twenty seasons ; — 
Never one has brought her any news ! 
Still her dim eyes silently 
Chase the white sails o'er the sea. 
Hopeless, faithful. 
Hannah 's at the window binding shoes." 

After crossing the railway, the road comes 
quickly to the head of West Beach. At low 




West Beach. 



water, its sands offer a long stretch of good 
wheeling, and, by going a little back towards 
Beverly, a good view may be had of the 
picturesque coast and islands of Manchester. 







BEYOND West Beach, the road crosses the 
railway again, and leaves the sea for the 
woods. Black Cove and Tuck's Point may- 
be visited by taking the first turn to the 
right. At Tuck's Point is the yacht club- 
house and a fine public pier jutting out from 
a little park. A maze of inlets and islands 
seams the harbor from the pier's end. It is 
worth the detour, both for the view of the 
cove and harbor, and the pleasant*- ride 
through the lanes coming and going. 

The way back is to the right by Harbor 
Street, over the railway bridge, and again to 



Manchester. 



153 



the right, when Bridge Street is reached. 
From this corner it is only half a mile to 




Manchester, once an ancient fishing-port 
and a part of Salem, now a quiet, typical 
New England village. 



154 The Puritan Coast. 

Church, school-house, town hall, and inn 
are all gathered about the village green, in 
the middle of which is a fine granite fountain. 
There are not many ancient houses ; but the 
general appearance is one of peaceful and 
prosperous age. The meeting-house in the 
square was built in 1809, and has a quaint 
and very graceful belfry and steeple. The 
weathercock was provided by the town in 
1754, at a cost of £7 10s. Sd., for the old 
church which the present structure super- 
seded. 

The proposal to heat this church on Sun- 
days was firmly opposed by many of the con- 
gregation, says the local historian. In the 
end, the party of progress was too strong for 
the remonstrants, and it was announced 
from the pulpit one Sunday, that thereafter 
the church would be heated on the Lord's 
Day. During worship on the next Sabbath, 
many were overcome by the heat, several 
women fainted, and others had to leave the 
church for a breath of fresh air. It is fair 
to presume that these afflicted ones were of 



Manchester. 



155 



the opposition, for after service it was dis- 
covered that, owing to a defect in the heater, 
no fire had been started that morning. 




Manchester Public Library and Church. 

Around the corner, on Union 

Street, is the Memorial Public 

Library given to the town by 

the Hon. T. Jefferson Coolidge. It contains 

interesting old wood-carvings and memorial 



156 



The Puritan Coast. 



tablets. In addition to the Memorial hall 
and library, it has a hall for the use of the 
G. A. R. 

The next street to the right crosses the 




Manchester Harbor. 



railway, passes the head of the harbor, and 
mounts the hill to Masconomo Road, hard 
by the great hotel. The red and gambrel- 
roofed house, high upon Thunderbolt Rock, 

at the right was the 
summer home of James 
T. Fields. 

One should now turn 

to the right, pass the 

Unitarian chapel, and 

keep on down the quiet English-like lane 

by the pretty Episcopal church with its 





P.tth ,- 



' -, I, 




V 



Manchester. 



159 



vines and picturesque lich-gate, to the shore 
of Lobster Cove. 

This little nook, sheltered by rocky points, 
is overlooked by chalet and castle-like houses 
in admirable harmony with their surround- 
ings. It is one of the prettiest spots on the 
The narrow lane separates the beach 
a gem-like 



coast, 
from 
pond. 




On one side 
is the kelp-strewn, 
rock-buttressed 
beach and the sea, 
sparkl ing like 
spangled cobalt 
under the sun. 

The tide softly laps the flat stones. A hun- 
dred feet distant from its brine is the fresh 
water of the little pond, fringed with grass, 
and dotted with lily-pads and arrow-heads. 
Under the autumn breeze its rippled surface 
takes on a blue deeper than ultramarine, 
and is all ringed about by an indescribable 
tangle of reddening and bronzing shrubs and 
vines. 



160 The Puritan Coast 

Gnarled trees and jagged rocks overhang 
the shady lane, where it climbs the hill over 
Gale's Point. Here is a lesson in landscape- 
gardening, for the noble estates are an added 
charm to the natural beauty. Over the lawn 
open glimpses of the sea, framed by trees 
and vines. 

From a little summer-house on the hill's 
top, there is an extended view of great 
charm. Over the deep azure of the bay* 
beyond faint Nahant, rise the pearly blue 
hills of Milton; nearer, lies Marblehead, 
" Its porphyry promontories sleeping in the 
sun;" then Salem, between the white sails 
in Beverly Cove and the purple ridges of 
Lynn Woods ; then the shimmering sands 
of West Beach and the rocky wooded shore, 
seen between the odd -shaped roofs, as it 
swings into the harbor, and on to where the 
little white belfry dominates all but the 
water tower on Powder House Hill. Then 
come green rolling hills, until, in the east, 
the ocean again raises its high wall to the 
sky. 




The Shady Lane. 



Manchester. 



163 



It is only a little way back to the Masco- 
nomo House, where Beach Street descends 
to Singing Beach. Perhaps the first thing 
to arrest the attention is not the musical 
accomplishments of the shore, but rather the 
rich coloring of its sands, — for it is quite 




Eagle's Head from Si7iging Beach. 

unlike the beaches that have been passed. 
In texture, more like the sand of Cape Cod, 
it is ruddy and beautiful, — a warm tawny 
pink in sunlight, which fairly glows against 
the dark background of the sea. However, 
its " singing " is really its great attraction. 
Underfoot, it seemed to me like the crisp 



164 The Puritan Coast. 

little note that the snow gives out in very 
cold weather; and under carriage-wheels, like 
the long-continued tone a heavy sleigh 
draws from a frosty snow-packed road. 

The beach ends at the left in a rocky prom- 
ontory called Eagle Head, that is well 
rusted by wind and spray, where it shows a 
bare beak to the sea; but landward it is 
feathered with straggling green. 

From the beach, the way must be retraced 
to Sea Street, which will bring one to Sum- 
mer Street, the Gloucester Road. Just op- 
posite the corner is an old burying-ground 
(1661), under a thick grove of pines which 
seem to rise from the very graves. Close 
by the sunny highway, these grimly nurtured 
trees cast a sombre shadow, broken only by 
the deeper sadness of their black trunks. 
Strangely uneven is the ground, and heavily 
carpeted with pine-needles. It seems unsafe 
to walk upon, — yielding like some unnatural 
quicksand. The marble slabs are stained 
green or smooched with black, and their 
elders, the old slate headstones, lean de- 



Manchester. 165 

crepitly, or seem sinking wearily down into 
the graves. 

Just beyond the graveyard, a quaint sign- 
post points the way to the grounds of the 
Essex County Club. From here on, the road 
is uninteresting until the brick-yards are past, 
and one enters the Manchester Woods. 

On either side of the way, then, is roman- 
tic, sylvan beauty. From the serious mystery 
of their covert, the straight trunks rise slen- 
derly through a maze of leafy branches. In 
the hollow where the brook trickles the soil, 
in midsummer, is thick-hid by brakes and 
ferns; but on the climbing bank at the other 
side, patches of warm brown and gray show 
where the rocky ground rises toward the sea. 
At the left, the woods overhang, and the 
tracery of trees and saplings is drawn against 
tumbled rocks and ledges, or broad dashes of 
golden-green where a shaft of sunshine has 
pierced a group of maples. Rock-strewn, a 
subtle harmony of gray and green, are the 
gullies near the top of the hill, enamelled 



i66 



The Puritan Coast. 



with silvery lichens and mosses in tint vary- 
ing from emerald to olive black. 




feife* 






*& 



' -^ItS^I^ 



,-'%- 



S3SS& I In, ^—---i^T 

Black Beach and Manchester Cove. 




After emerging from these woods, Ocean 
Street, the first right, runs down the hill to a 
pretty little beach, and turning to the left, 
skirts Manchester Cove, on the other side of 
which is Coolidge's Point. The waters of 



Manchester. 167 

the cove invade the meadows at the left, and 
the flood-tide, rushing tumultuously under 
the bridge, brims to overflowing the winding 
river. Along its placid curves the country is 
much like parts of England. The hills are 
embowered in softly rounded foliage, and in 
its rich green shelter lie tilled fields, fruitful 
orchards, and trim cottages. On a calm 
evening, with the sunset light over the hills 
and reflected in the river, and all detail 
blended and massed under the gathering 
twilight, the sentiment of the scene is one of 
profound peace. 

The shingly beach and the meadow-edge 
are littered with dories, nets, anchors, and 
all the picturesque belongings of fishermen. 
Most of the travel is on the highway, so that 
one generally has this road almost to one's 
self. As I stood here one beautiful October 
day, the smoke of autumn fires drifted lazily 
over the harvested fields. The goldenrod 
had lost its flaming yellow, and deliciously 
brown in tone, harmonized wonderfully well 
with the lavender-purple asters and the straw- 



1 68 The Puritan Coast. 

yellow of the grass. Toward Magnolia, the 
purple rocks on the hills shouldered aside 
the red and bronzed bushes, sombre and rich 
as antique rugs. The breeze was a little 
chilly, but in warm, sheltered spots a few 
bees still hummed, and long-bodied wasps 
crawled about the path where gorgeous 
green and golden flies sunned themselves, 
and buzzed cheerfully. All was quiet. Over 
on the main road an occasional wheelman, or 
a few golfers driving to the links, were the 
only souls that shared with me the freshness 
of the morning. 




A TURN to the right into Summer Street 
again, and once more to the right into level 
Raymond Street, brings one between willows 
and meadows to Magnolia Beach, at the head 
of Kettle Cove. Here the first comers landed, 
it is said, and settled Jeffry's Creek, rechris- 
tened Manchester, in 1645. The Gloucester 
line is at the farther end of the beach. The 
name Magnolia celebrates the beautiful flow- 
ers found in the swamps and deep woods 
which lie to the north. 

" Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's 
flowery vines, 
And the white magnolia blossoms star the twilight 
of the pines ! " 



170 



The Puritan Coast. 



The beach is edged, after the American 
manner, with disorderly rows of bathhouses. 
The settlement beyond, with its cupolas and 
turrets, seems like a seaside Midway. To it 
in summer come seekers for rest and pleas- 
ure. No sharers they of the original settlers' 





An Introduction. 



prejudices against " excesse in apparrell," 
" new strainge fashions," nor " superstitious 
ribbons." It would be an interesting meet- 
ing could Father Time present the maid of 
that time to the modern woman. 

Where the road climbs into the village, 
and Hunt had his odd studio, " The Hulk," 








ww\(7 m 



Masfnolia. 



173 



a stable has been built. Indeed, Magnolia 
has greatly changed, and in little more than 
a decade. However, many picturesque old 




Under the willows, Magnolia. 



bits still remain ; the old road around the 
point under the willows, and by the quaint 
fish-houses, is as delightful as ever. 



174 



The Puritan Coast. 



Nowhere does our road come nearer to 
the enduring rocks and the clamorous sea 
than here. Even on a calm day, the ear is 




Summer House, Magnolia 



filled with watery noise; the tide is ever 
lifting and falling with murmurous cry. 

Just above the surf, the path turns away 
to pass some fine houses and then follows 



Magnolia. 175 

a rocky curve, beyond which are the cliffs 
by Rafe's Chasm. 

In summer this white bulwark of tumbled 
rocks, bleaching under the sun, is overhung 
by wide, deep masses of sweetbrier, descend- 
ants of those same " sweet single roses " that 
cheered the Rev. Francis Higginson that 
June day in 1629, when the first English 
ship sailed adventurously amid the reefs 
and ledges along this " Land of Rocks and 
Roses." On the tenth of October, I found 
one of these same sweet single roses bloom- 
ing amid the myriad-gleaming scarlet hips, 
and the bunches of asters and faded golden- 
rod. 

At the foot of the decline, a brawling brook 
crosses the road, to sink its clamor in the 
fuller cadence of the sea. 

The road turns from the shore and enters 
the wood. Through the trees comes the 
music of that little stream : — 

"The music of a brook that flows 
Murmuring farewell, and yet doth never leave." 



176 The Puritan Coast. 

Over the hill, which is steep, and down the 
other side about a quarter of a mile, is a 
little clearing, just where the road stretches 
away to a level, and here to the right is the 
path to Rafe's Chasm. 

As I walked this path, that October day, 
the sun shot its warmth through the boughs 
of the pitch-pines and set free their balsamic 
odor. Chickadees were calling, and other 
little birds hopped and flitted about in the 
branches, too busy to notice me, though I 
stood within a yard of their work-ground. 
Bluejays were screaming, and from the dis- 
tance came the cawing of crows. The boughs 
rustled a little in the tender breeze, and the 
birds fluttered gently. Suddenly came the 
soft, low intermittent pealing of a bell : 

" O father! I hear the church bells ring; 
Oh say, what may it be ? " 

Muffled at times, and not quite like a 
church-bell, it was the bell-buoy off the Reef 
of Norman's Woe. Beyond the grove the 




" A nd the skipper had taken his little daughter, 
To bear him company." 



Magnolia. i yg 

path is very rough, bordered with bayberry 
and ivy, and winds among the sharp spurs 
and grass-tufted chinks of the rocks, directly 
to Rafe's Chasm. 

Here the rock is stripped bare, and rises 
bleached gray white on one side but ruddy 
on the other. An iron cross set here in the 
cliff is in memory of Martha Marion, a 
young lady who was swept away by a roller 
and drowned. 

In the deep chasm, the restless sea roars 
and gurgles, or booms hollowly, cadenced by 
the sharp swash of the spray. The surf an- 
swers the dismal wail of the whistling buoy 
at the harbor's mouth. Indeed, the place is 
"full of noises," like Prospero's Isle. Across 
the bay is Eastern Point and its Light; to 
the left, Norman's Woe, peacefully fringed 
with white; and beyond, stretching along 
the harbor, the roofs and steeples of Glou- 
cester, behind the white sails of its fleet. 

When one returns to the road and goes 
on toward Gloucester, the sea seems far 



i So 



The Puritan Coast. 



away ; but any one of the right-hand paths 
soon brings it to view. It is all coast or 
climb along the shady road, under the wind- 
music in the tree-tops. Norman Road, the 
way is called at the Magnolia end, and Hes- 







Fresh Water Cove Village. 

perus Avenue, where it joins the main road 
at Fresh Water Village. Fresh Water Cove 
lies at the foot of the hill where the fresh 
water itself tumbles down the little cascade 
under the road. Farther on, the shade falls 




Ra/e's Chasm. 



Magnolia. 183 

from unusually fine trees. The road is high 
above the bay, and over the water the sunlit 
city is framed in the dark embroidery of 
the oaks. The road now descends until it 
crosses the canal that connects Squam River 
with the harbor opposite Ten Pound Island 
Light. It wholly loses its charm, and, a little 
over three miles from Magnolia, loses itself 
in the heart of Gloucester. 




Till within a little more than fifty years, 
Gloucester comprised the whole of Cape Ann. 
Then the farthermost region was set apart 
and called Rockport. Gloucester has always 
reaped her harvest from the sea, and is to-day 
the foremost fishing-port of the world ; while 
Rockport, though it still sends a fleet to 
the Banks, rends a part of her living from 
the granite hills of the Cape itself. But the 
quarries are a comparatively modern resource. 
Fishing was the first, and is still the chief, 



Gloucester and Rockport. 185 

industry of the people of Cape Ann. Indeed, 
the fisheries brought the first settlers to 
our rocky coast, for the sterile Cape itself 
offered few attractions. Behind its rocky 
girdle a wild forest rose over tumbled bowl- 
ders and ragged ledges. Only the slender 
brooks that trickled down to the shore pierced 
its dark mystery; a fearful region it was, 
filled, according to the early comers, with 
witches and ghosts, lions and devils. How- 
ever, the crooked, barren headlands sheltered 
snug harbors, and were good places for curing 
fish, so along their shores rude fishing villages 
were built, — the humble beginnings of to- 
day's prosperity. 

Active and busy are the streets that have 
replaced the rough paths of earlier days. 
Banks, churches, offices, and stores line their 
length ; but even to their most urban parts 
comes the cool refreshing breath of the sea. 
One is continually reminded of the town's 
chief occupation, for the signs read of ships 
and their stores, of boats and seines, of nets 



1 86 



The Puritan Coast 




From the wharves, East Gloucester. 

and fish, and up the side-streets, from the 

yards and wharves, steal fine marine odors. 

Washington and Main streets lead to East 



Gloucester and Rockport. 187 

Main, the road to East Gloucester, with a 
most picturesque waterside. From the store- 
houses and fish-flakes, the wharves stretch out 
high above the low water, as if on stilts, or are 
lapped deeply in the ample flood-tide. The 
fleet crowds the harbor ; and through the maze 
of shrouds and masts are seen the towers and 
steeples of the city. On the steep bank that 
shelves to the haven, under willows and apple- 
trees, cluster snug cottages, and about them 
lie boats updrawn in the grasses and flowers. 
From the sidepath, one looks down through 
green boughs on schooners' decks, on dry- 
ing seines and dangling purse-nets. 

After passing Rocky Neck Avenue, there 
is a fine view of the harbor and the surf 
breaking at its mouth on Norman's Woe and 
the cliffs by Rafe's Chasm. Here one enters 
the land of rackets and golf clubs, summer 
girls, novels, and hammocks, water-color kits 
and white umbrellas. Beyond the stone gate- 
house, the way swings around the sunny curve 
of a sandy beach, then through the shade of 



i88 



The Puritan Coast. 



rustling poplars and great willows, close by 
Niles Pond. Over its fresh water, the ocean 
stretches, a deeper blue; and the noise of 
the far off surf forms an undertone to the 




Eastern Point. 



song of birds and the splashing of the pond's 
thin waves on the mossy rocks. All the way 
to Eastern Point, the fields are bossed with 
rocks, and gay with flowers. From the shrub- 




The Harbor from East Gloucester. 



Gloucester and Rockport. 191 

bery, comes the continual song of birds. The 
farther one goes, the louder becomes the un- 
ceasing refrain of the surf, the clearer the inter- 
mittent peal of the floating bell, the stronger 
the melancholy wail of the whistling buoy. 

Beyond the rusty wall of jumbled rocks, by 
the light-house on Eastern Point, the outgoing 
fleet, meeting the broad Atlantic swell, tosses 
and tips like the little ships on old Dutch 
clocks. The afternoon sun blazes on the 
harbor; the sails of the tacking schooners 
alternate in sunlight or shadow ; and the hills 
at Magnolia gleam softly green, or sink darkly 
purple, into the fleeting cloud-shadows. Bay- 
berry and wild roses perfume the sea-air. 

My last visit here was preceded by a long 
spell of foul weather ; and so, with the promise 
of fair winds and blue skies, many vessels 
were beating out of the harbor, and passing 
in quick procession about the Point. The 
offing was all flecked with their sails. " Cap- 
tains Courageous," and crews as brave, were 
putting forth to their perilous toil among 



192 The Puritan Coast. 

the fogs and tempests of the Banks, whence 
many a ship has returned with flag half- 
masted, for few callings are so dangerous. 
Hundreds of Gloucester widows and orphans 
mourn their lost ones, perished in those 
treacherous seas. 

It may be that the dangers, the sufferings, 
and the calamities of a fisherman's life in this 
world inspired the sweet doctrine of an all- 
forgiving Mercy in the hereafter which found 
such a ready acceptance on the Cape, for 
the Universalist sect was established here as 
early as 1770, and John Murray, its apostle, 
preached for many years in the old Univer- 
salist, church at Gloucester. 

Certainly, the adventurous life of the fisher- 
men was well calculated to fit them for daring 
naval deeds; and so we find that, during the 
Revolution and the War of 181 2, the sailors of 
Gloucester were a scourge to the British. 
Captain Haraden alone wrested 1000 cannon 
from them on the high seas. The hardy 
industry of this people is the school of 
heroes. 



Gloucester and Rockport. 193 

From the light-house at Eastern Point, the 
road winds close to the shore, and in the dis- 
tance there soon glimmer the buttresses of 
Brace's Rock. It seems to me that this 
should be the very spot where John Josselyn, 
Gent., in 1638, saw his monster, the sea-ser- 
pent, " quoiled up on a rock at Cape Ann." 
I can imagine his shaggy head reposing on 
the great green-backed rock that first shoul- 
ders off the surges, and his crimson mottled 
"quoils" luxuriously cooled by the dazzling 
bouquets of foam that break on the purple 
and sienna ramparts of his lair. 

Close by the path, at the head of Brace's 
Cove, Niles Pond again appears, sparkling 
amid its lily pads and sedge, so that you have 
on one side, the expanse of the ocean, break- 
ing rollers, passing ships, and wheeling gulls, 
and on the other side, dimpling fresh water, 
under the shade of willows, water-lily blos- 
soms, swaying-reeds and sweet-voiced land- 
birds. Farther on, from a hill, a grand view 
of the harbor is spread out, and the road 

13 



194 The Puritan Coast. 

leads us back to the city. For the shore 
cannot be followed conveniently all around the 
Cape. I pushed my wheel through its rocky 
pastures, and over its beaches, which last is 
possible at low water ; but the better way is 
to start afresh from the city, Whittier's " Cool 
and sea-blown town." 

The long country road across the Cape 
is known as Eastern Avenue in Gloucester, 
but becomes Main Street in Rockport. The 
electric cars now tear noisily, and at breakneck 
speed, through the lonely woods it traverses. 
To this day, the interior of the Cape is about 
as wild and untamed as ever. It was doubt- 
less in the shades and silence of this forest 
that the ghostly host was bred which 
descended in 1692 on the garrison of Cape 
Ann ; for a part in the troublous witchcraft 
times was not denied to Gloucester, though 
it was happily neither sad nor cruel. 

It was, we are told, in the summer of the 
year so fateful to Salem, that " rollicking 
apparitions dressed, like gentlemen, in white 
waistcoats and breeches," kept the good 




Ebenezer Babson. 



Gloucester and Rockport. 197 

people here " in feverish excitement and 
alarm, for a whole fortnight together." At 
first, only a couple of these " rollicking 
apparitions " were discovered by one Ebenezer 
Babson, a sturdy yeoman of Cape Ann ; 
but their number soon increased, keeping 
pace with the number of the witnesses of 
their evil pranks. These jovial demons 
disported themselves in a manner quite 
rowdyish and more becoming to gentlemen 
of the eighteenth century and the mother 
country, than to staid Puritan times and prim 
New England. They skulked about in the 
bushes, threw stones, beat on barns with 
clubs, were insolent in some outlandish jargon 
(probably hog-Latin ! ), and even made one 
or two bad shots at the sturdy yeoman. 
Indeed, " they acted more in the spirit of 
diabolical revelry, than as if actuated by any 
deadlier purpose ; " and this farce they kept 
up, though much powder and ball were 
wasted on them by Babson and his comrades, 
who were actually reinforced by a detachment 
of sixty men from Ipswich, led by Captain 



198 The Puritan Coast. 

Appleton ! According to the poet Whittier, 
the discerning Captain, after firing a silver 
button at the merry gentlemen with no effect, 
declared them to be no mortal foes, turned 
to his Bible, and then lifted up his voice in 
prayer, amid his kneeling men. 

" Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the spectres 
round the wall, 

But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears and 
hearts of all, — 

Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish ! Never after, 
mortal man 

Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the block- 
house of Cape Ann." 

Later on, Gloucester had a resident witch 
also, one Margaret Wesson, who was long the 
dread of the superstitious dwellers on the 
Cape. But, in 1745, they were delivered 
of her in a strange and mysterious manner. 
At the siege of Louisburg by the Colonial 
troops, two Massachusetts soldiers, natives 
of Gloucester, were annoyed by the persist- 
ent and unusual actions of an uncanny crow 
that hovered over them, cawing horribly. 



"^v 



-/ 




*d£X- 



"Old Meg." 



Gloucester and Rockport. 201 

One of them thought that under this black 
disguise he recognized " Old Meg," as 
Gloucester's witch was called. So he and 
his comrade cut each a silver button off 
his uniform, and fired them at the crow. 
" At the first shot, they broke its leg ; at 
the second, it fell dead at their feet." Thus 
are we at once impressed by the excellence 
of their marksmanship, and the munificence of 
the Colonial government in the matter of 
buttons. However, the strangest part of the 
story follows. Home again, our two soldiers 
learned that on the precise day, hour, and 
minute when they had killed the suspicious 
crow, Old Meg herself had unaccountably 
fallen of a broken leg, and soon after died in 
great agony. And, stranger still, upon ex- 
amining her wounds, the identical silver 
buttons were found with which the soldiers 
had loaded their guns under the walls of 
Louisburg. And this story, as well as the 
one of the Spectre Leaguers, was " vouched 
for by persons of character and credibility." 



202 



The Puritan Coast. 



After coming out of the woods, there is 
a wide-reaching view of the ocean over the 
tree-tops and rocky pastures ; then Main Street 







The Main Street, Rockport. 



dips quickly toward Sandy Bay. The way 
to Land's End is around to the right and 
close to the water. It is a pleasant street 
that winds by old houses and wayside wells 




^/ 



x\ r 



Era? 
— pft/ww^^B ^i'l^fi-. 5 lid 


















Rockport- 



Gloucester and Rockport. 205 

through the heart of the town, by the village 
church, to the little common under its elms. 
Next, comes Mt. Pleasant Street, and a good 
climb past more old houses with square mass- 
ive chimmeys, and gardens bright with old- 
fashioned flowers. Through their orchards 
and over their sloping fields is seen the 
deep blue of the sea. 

But the way soon becomes a country 
road ; over its length rise the towers of the 
lights on Thatcher's Island. The road is 
at a considerable distance from the water, 
and the fields slope down to Loblolly Cove. 
A little back, on the left, are Straitsmouth 
Island and light, and the Tri-Salvages reef 
and spindle, tapering out to sea. 

Thatcher's Island was first named Thatcher's 
Woe by Anthony Thatcher, to commemorate 
the sad story of his shipwreck there in 
August, 1635. His own family of seven, that 
of his cousin Parson Avery, numbering 
eleven, and five others — in all, twenty-three 
souls — set sail from Ipswich, for Marblehead, 
to whose rough fisher-folk the Rev. Mr. 
Avery felt called to preach the Gospel. All 



206 The Puritan Coast. 

went well until the night of August fourteenth, 
when, at ten o'clock, their old sails split. 
They then resolved to cast anchor till morn- 
ing ; but, before daylight, a mighty storm arose, 
and, their cable slipping away, the pinnace 
was hurled by the raging seas upon a rock. 
Nearly the whole ship's company were 
swallowed up, or dashed to pieces by the 
merciless waves. Thatcher and his wife were 
both saved, as if by a miracle. He called 
the desolate island upon which they were 
cast away Thatcher's Woe, after his own 
name, " and the Rock, Avery, his Fall, to the 
end that their fall and loss, and mine own, 
might be had in perpetual remembrance." 
In the isle lieth buried the body of his 
cousin's eldest daughter, whom he found 
dead on the shore. Whittier's poem, " The 
Swan Song of Parson Avery," is founded on 
this history. 

" And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from the 

squall, 
With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale recall, 
When they see the white waves breaking on the 

Rock of Avery's Fall ! " 



Gloucester and Rockport. 207 

The road continues to the Turk's Head Inn, 
at Land's End, which is named for its proto- 
type in Cornwall. On the beach here, just 
back from Milk Island, the Atlantic cable 
is brought up out of the sea, and is marked 
by two curiously striped poles with discs. 
Here the road ends. Beyond, stretches the 
length of Long Beach to Bass Rocks. 

Thatcher's, Straitsmouth, and Milk Islands 
were called, by Capt. John Smith, the Three 
Turks' Heads, in memory of one of his 
exploits, when, as a Christian champion, he 
slew as many Turks in combat and afterwards 
beheaded them. To this grisly souvenir, he 
added a pleasanter one, by naming Cape 
Ann, Cape Tragabizanda, after a fair Moslem 
who beguiled the weary days of his captivity 
in Stamboul. 

" Who, when the chance of war had bound 
The Moslem chain his limbs around, 
Soothed with her smiles his hours of pain, 
And fondly to her youthful slave 
A dearer gift than freedom gave." 




'•An N ! 5 QL^ fvl 

If in Rockport, at the foot of the hill from 
Gloucester, one turns to the left, instead of 
towards Land's End, the road will take him 
about Sandy Bay, and then above the artificial 
harbors to which the granite is brought from 
the quarries of Pole and Pigeon Hills. In its 
descent, the rocky debris has crept outward 
till it lies like a petrified octopus, with rigid 
arms stretched out into the sea. One cannot 
help wondering how the beauty of ledge and 
bowlder can be transformed into such ugliness. 
The air is filled with the tinkle of hammer 
and chisel, and the testy puff of steam-drills. 
Occasionally, comes the boom of an explo- 
sion, wresting the rocks from the hills. 

From the road itself, one may look down 
into a quarry, with its tracks and engines, 



Pigeon Cove and Annisquam, 209 

its sheds and steam-drills, and its men, ant- 
like, beneath the high derricks. The wayside 
houses are utilitarian and unlovely, yet some- 
times not without a lowly picturesqueness. 

It is uphill and down between the blue wall 
of the sea and the gray granite hills, to 
Pigeon Cove at the harbor, and then up the 
hill on the other side, with houses of a 
better class, and many summer hotels and 
boarding houses. 

At the top of the hill, a drive leads seaward 
along the shore by Andrew's Point and Hoop 
Pole Cove, and back to Granite Street. The 
summer settlement here is called Ocean View. 
The rocky shore is well-wooded, exposed to 
the full fury of the northeasters ; and the surf 
is often magnificent. 

Granite Street runs into Washington Street, 
and over its sloping length, across the 
wind-whipped bay, shine the sands of Plum 
Island, glimmering in their own heat, and 
backed by the hills of Newbury. At the foot 
of the slope is Folly Cove, lonely and grim, 
and across it Folly Point, its strata defined 

14 



2IO 



The Puritan Coast. 



by sombre markings, now sloping, now 

vertical, to the white foam at its foot. A 

few fisher-huts are ^ 

clustered at the head ^ 

of the cove, dories are 

drawn far above the 

reach of waves, and 




Folly Cove. 



the fences are festooned with drying nets, in 
all the shades of brown and black. From 
here, the road climbs a little hill beside a 




'• The Village Street." 



Pigeon Cove and Annisquam. 213 

brook tumbling down its granite bed. Where 
the roads fork, the perspective of lower lane 
is spaced by level shadows from bordering 
willows, their trunks cut darkly across the 
green meadow. Beyond is Lanesville. 

The prettier way, by Langsford Street, runs 
uphill by an oak grove and under old locusts. 
Soon the sea comes in sight, and on its rim, 
over the open fields, Agamenticus in Maine 
rises blue and alone. Then the coast shows 
faintly off Portsmouth, and by Rye and Hamp- 
ton to Salisbury Beach, where the cottages 
loom white on the sands ; and over the end of 
the road is the purple of Heartbreak Hill in 
Ipswich. 

As I stood here, a stone schooner was 
standing out from Bay View in the fresh north- 
west wind. So heavily was she laden, that 
her deck was scarcely above water. She did 
not seem to list at all under the strong breeze, 
though all sail was set. So deep was she, 
that as the seas struck her, they swept back 
across her deck from stem to stern. The 



214 The Puritan Coast. 

afternoon sun lit up her sails and cast a long 
shadow over the water in her lee. 

Great heaps of paving-stones for the armor- 
ing of city streets lie piled by the harbor. 
Along the shaded village street of Lanesville, 
the houses cluster, and between them and 
the sea are great sloping granite promon- 
tories, in their hollows fertile green-sward and 
thriving, though wind-tossed, willows. When 
a northeast gale sweeps this coast, the tor- 
mented sea, ridged and edged by foam, rushes 
wildly along Folly Point, breaking in white 
fury against the rocks all the way to 
Lane's Cove, then hurries on till spent in 
smothered foam over the tusks of Plum 
Cove Ledge. 

At Bay View, a deep inlet makes in almost 
to the road ; beyond the village, on a hill, is 
the First Universalist church of Annisquam. 
Square and box-like it stands, under a spread- 
ing elm, overlooking Lobster Cove. The 
afternoon sun glitters on the shore and water 
of this deep cut in the granite hills. Fruit- 
trees, overtopped by whispering pines, bend 




A nnisqttam Church. 



Pigeon Cove and Annisquam. 217 

over its edge, vines and grasses straggle down 
its tumbling walls. 

A square old-fashioned house, with great 
central chimney, stands at the beginning of 
the winding country road to Annisquam. 
This is a quiet little haven, resting under its 
fruit and shade trees, sheltered by granite hills 
that rise steeply between it and the sea, on 
one side, and the bowlder-strewn Cape hills 
on the other. No matter how the wind may 
blow outside, the little cove is placid. The 
houses are mostly snug cottages, many of 
them very picturesque. Here and there, is a 
mouldering boat by a decrepit wharf, or a dory 
drawn up or afloat, or an old-fashioned well, 
— in fact the place abounds in artistic bits 
of foreground. All about Cape Ann, one will 
notice how common and how various are the 
wayside wells. Past the post-office and 
school, the road turns at the head of the har- 
bor to the west side of the hill, where there is 
a summer settlement by Cambridge people. 
It is at the head of Squam River, across which 
are the fantastic shifting dunes of Coffin's 



218 



The Puritan Coast. 



beach and the sands of Castle Neck in 
Ipswich. 




Head of A nnisquam Harbor. 



From the main street near the post-office, 
the way to Gloucester is over the old wooden 
bridge, over which ;the stage-coach has ceased 



Pio-eon Cove and Annisquam. 219 

to clatter. It was a noisy crossing, made not 
without apprehension. Even under a passing 
wheel, the old draw creaks complainingly. 

At the head of the cove, the little church 
shines white above the green ring of trees, 
and, in leafy shadows, a schooner or two seem 
like interlopers in this land-locked quiet. 

Across the bridge we come again to Wash- 
ington Street, then another bridge, and so, 
under a long aisle of arching willows, to 
Riverdale. The picturesque quality of the 
way here is leaving it fast; it is not as pleas- 
ant a ride or walk as it used to be. 

Close by the tide-mill is the monument to 
the " Riverdale Martyrs," under the shadow 
of the flag. Above the dam, the calm waters 
reflect steep-faced Beacon Pole Hill, and be- 
low, the water tumbles noisily into an arm 
of Squam River, stretching out attractively 
between Riverdale and Wheeler's Point. 

The road rises to the foot of Beacon Pole 
Hill. From this elevation, I looked across the 
green fertile meadows and calm stream. The 



2 20 



The Puritan Coast. 



rough hills, with a virile, bossy decoration of 
thickly strewn bowlders, caught on their 
shoulders the golden evening light. The 



, 



^ 



k 



ii(« 









■ 



4i 










*>J\ r: — «= 



Riverdale. 



shadow, creeping upward with purple edge, 
melted into rich olive in the hollow, from the 
mingling of lichen-colored rocks and thin, 



Pigeon Cove and Annisquam. 221 

cropped turf. Beyond, in the south, over the 
roofs of Gloucester, in the last ray of sunset, 
glistened the golden cross of Saint Anne's. 

It is now only a short wheel back to 
Gloucester. There finishes the bicycle path 
along the Puritan Coast, and here this book 
comes also to its End. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 419 473 1 



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